Waking up and freaking out massively as we had slept through the alarm, we threw our belongings into our backpacks, flew through reception to pay and hailed the first taxi, not even bothering to barter the price first and headed to Steve and Charm's hotel. There we were met by Steve and Charm also running a little late (which made us feel a little better!) and caught our ride to the train station.

Waiting for us at the station was the most luxurious train we had ever seen, let alone been on. We were seated in chairs, meant for a beautiful old-fashioned library with an old novel, a robe and a smoking pipe. Between the four of us facing each other, was a beautifully set table ready for our three-course meal. The next 10 hours flew by with 5-star service, beautful countryside scenery and good company.

The trip took a short halt to everyones suprise and as we looked out the windows to inspect the cause of our stop, we noticed around a hundred locals emerging towards the train and looking underneath. This was then followed by angry yelling and the locals hitting the train with their brooms and farming tools and then Steve noticed someone quickly carried away into the small village. We had apparently hit a local who was on the tracks yet from what we were able to find out, the person was able to get out of the way but was still grazed by the train. It was another scary incident after our Waynupicchu girl falling off the top. 2 in 2 days... please don't let there be a 3rd!!!

Back underway we nestled back into our seats and relaxed some more before heading to the last carriage which housed a small bar and an open air sitting area overlooking the back of the train and the tracks rushing by. We enjoyed a few happy hour drinks here, whilst entertained with local dancers and musicians and looking at the, again stunning, landscape pass us by.

We arrived into Puno, which sidles on Lake Titikaca, and would be our resting place before moving around the the other side of the lake the following morning in Bolivia. Although just a stopover, our hotel was nothing, if not amazing. Enjoying another night of 5-star living we enojoyed a beautiful dinner overlooking the lake and called it a night, still exhausted from all our hiking and travelling in the past few days.

Jumping aboard a tour bus, we were taken to the border and crossed without dilemma and 15 minutes later arrived to anther lakeside town called Copacabana. Here we wandered the streets a little and checked out a huge church. Exiting the church we found hundreds of cars all decorated in all different ways. The tradition and belief here, is that when you buy a new car (new or second hand), it needs to be blessed, like a christening and they were all lined up in the streets waiting for the priest to pass by them and take care of the prayers and make them safe to drive.

We headed down to the dock and boarded a boat with the rest of our tour group which had an average age of 60. Luckily though we switched boats not long after to a catamaran that we were to spend the night in with one other passenger, Will. Will is an Englishman and a really lovely man and considering it was the four of us plus him on this boat for 2 days it was very lucky we got along! We enjoyed a buffet lunch in the catamaran, docked on the biggest island of the lake, Isla Del Sol.

Afterwards we boarded a couple of small dingys rowed by local men around the coast of the island to reach the north end. We felt sorry for the boats "captains" as they had a difficult job of rowing us the 45 minute trip with 5 in the boat. Nevertheless, we enjoyed the scenic ride up the coastline, taking in the beauty of the lake and the snowcapped mountains in the distance. We followed up with a hike up to the top of a mountain to take in the 360 degree views of the island, lake and mountains. It was an amazing sight and definately worth struggling with hiking in altitude to see it! There were also some Inka ruins to check out, which after seeing Machu Picchu, was just another ruin, but they again were set in a beautiful spot with an outlook over the lake where you could just sit and take it all in for hours. Hours, we unfortunately didn't have and so our guide guided us on and we hiked back to our docked catamaran whilst finding hidden beaches and more beautiful outlooks along the way. As Kate and I walked around, we realised that the island looked a lot like Mykonos in Greece and the waters reminded us a lot of the Mediterranean Sea which was odd considering this is the highest (navigable) lake in the world.

That night we had another buffet dinner, but this time we were treated to a suprise spot of local entertainment aboard the boat. During dessert a group of local islanders boarded dressed in their traditional clothing and carrying traditional local instruments. They played us local songs and danced away whilst we all sat and enjoyed our ice-cream. At first, to many protests, we were all in turn dragged up to dance with them. We definately had no idea what the hell we were doing but considering it was only the five of us aboard, it wasn't that bad and turned out to be a lot of fun! Steve and Charm definately took the prize for best effort at local dancing though!

The next morning, following brekky we were taken to a new spot on the island in the boat. Here we had yet another hike ahead of us. Already b*****ed from the previous day's hike, we gritted our teeth and set off. Ofcourse, it was again well worth the effort. At the risk of being a drag, I need to repeat that the views were AMAZING! We made it to what our guide said was just shy of 4000m altitude. Wanting to break the 4000m mark Steve climbed further up on a solo mission breaking the barrier and coming face to face with a giant pig at the same time! The rest of us sat, drank loads of water, played with some little dogs and just reflected.

A little further along we passed by a local house that was a makeshift bar and breaking from our schedule, Steve made the best request of the day and we stopped for a beer in a very picturesque spot. Refreshed, we continued on into a museum that demonstrated the local culture and we even got involved in a traditional ceremony where a local "medicine man" (sharman) spoke in the ancient language and prayed to Pachamama (Mother Earth). It was a very spiritual moment and we were very lucky to have been a part of it. We walked through a beautiful garden where they grew any type of herb you could possibly think of, that they use for medical healing. It also had around 15 alpacas and llamas that we were able to feed and pet. This marked the end of our exploration of the island and we headed back to the port.

Our docked catamaran was around in another cove of the island and so we boarded a traditional boat where we got to dress in the local clothing and row ourselves along and look like tourists! It was a lot of fun!

Two more hours of cruising the lake and a nice buffet lunch, we said goodbye to Lake Titikaca and hopped on a bus direct to La Paz, the capital of Bolivia. The whole journey from Cuzco to Titikaca and La Paz was a definately memorable and the four of us absolutely loved every moment of it!