We arrived last night into Puno, after a five hour bus journey, mostly spent winding up and down and around the Andes. We both started to feel a little unwell by the time we arrived. Again, we arrived to a sign held by a man, stating Mr Brackley! these little hostels are great at collecting you, even if you have just given them a random bus arrival time. We just hoped hat he wasn't waiting too long, as it was bitterly cold.

The hotel is great, we even have an estoofer... otherwise known as a heater. Whilst i am typing this, Matt has just found out from reception that this has been the coldest winter in Peru! typical.

Yesterday started with an early pick up of 7.15am. We were driven to the shores of Lake Titicaca and boarded a little tourist boat. The lake is 195km long by 65 km wide and lies at 3800 mtrs high! We had about 25 people on board and Roberto our tour guide took us on our journey. We first arrived at the floating Uros islands. Literally floating, as the locals have made a base of mud and bits about 2 metres deep and then the floor is coated with reeds laid diagonally and then a layer vertically and so on and so forth. They then anchor down each island so that they do not float away. The local people of the Uros Islands live a very simple self sufficient life that is totally seperate from the mainland. We were greeted warmly on the island by the villagers who were very keen to sell their local handicraft, and there was even a cheeky cat who promptly dove into that mornings fresh catch of fish and ran off with a fish flapping in its mouth and a disgruntled fisherman in hot pursuit. We were treated to a ten minute ride in a traditional reed boat, accompanied by the children of the island who entertained us along the way with singing and generally being rather cute. You had to keep your wits about you though, as Matt only opened our bag to see if we had any sweets and a little girl dove in, took out a bottle of orange juice and proceeded to drink it! They spied mine and another ladies tissues and spent the following ten minutes folding the two tissues that they had been given each very neatly into little squares and then putting them into a plastic bag in their pocket. Half an hour later we were on our way to Taquile, which is a large actual rock etc island and about 2 hours by boat. The lake was very calm and flat and we passed vast areas of thick reeds, then onto the larger part of the lake. Lake Titicaca is 60% Peru and 40% Bolivia.

We arrived to Taquile Island, which has no cars, just Mules. The Islanders only eat from the land and the sea. So the lucky little llamas and sheep seen wandering around are used solely for their wool. The island itself looked just like a Greek Island, surrounded by deep blue water and with a beautiful rugged coastline. We were dropped off and had a wonderful walk of about an hour up and over the top of the island and then down into the main square. We were then treated to a typical lunch of vegetable soup, followed by grilled trout and rice, it was delicous and enjoyed by all. After lunch we started our descent of 534 steps back down to the port where our boat was waiting for us to transport us back to Puno.

Tomorrow we have an early bus to Cuzco!