On Monday we set off to Puno. I was in the front seat (yay!) so got a great bird's eye view of everything. We got to the Peruvian border where once again we had some severe muppetry happening. The 2 Americans had left their immigration forms from Bolivia in their big backpacks (which were buried somewhere in the depths of the truck under everyone else's bags). When I asked them why they hadn't left them in their passports they said that nobody had told them to do that and they didn't know what the form were for anyway......how the hell do these people travel to the next state, let alone to another country?!! Oh, and while we're at it, these same 2 girls are doing the Inca Trail in 2 days' time and between them do not possess a daypack, a sleeping bag, a pair of socks, thermals, in fact anything of any use for a simple day hike, let alone a 4 day trek in altitude where you have to camp!

Right, rant over. We got to the hotel and head straight out to lunch followed by a visit to the Uros floating islands. Hmmm, not my cup of tea at all. They are basically islands built entirely of layers of reeds and are inhabited by the Aymara tribe. Everything on the islands is made of reeds. Anyway, it was shockingly commercialised. Myself, Michelle and Verity got dragged into a hut by a lady who proceeded to dress us up in the local costume - we looked ridiculous! Of course we then got dragged over to their stall to buy their wares (hard-nosed b**** here didn't buy anything!). We then got taken to another island to a restaurant. I just stayed on the boat. I hate places like this - they exploit the locals and they exploit the tourists and there was nothing original or traditional about any of it. Harrumph!

Ayhooo, we then had a wander (for miles) to find an ATM. Puno has quite a pretty centre of town but nothing special. The people were super friendly though and when we looked lost, there was no hesitation in trying to help us.

Nothing much else to report. Next stop is Cusco and the Inca Trail. Am scared about how I will cope as I still haven't acclimatised to the altitude but there's not much I can do about it now! Still in the process of uploading photos onto picasa so check them out in the next day or so - Death Road especially!