Puno - Day 49 - 17/11/2012 (Saturday)
Not done this for a while... A nice early start and a long bus journey! We got on the bus at 7:30 and then drove to another 2 pick up points. An hour later we'd covered just over a mile. We weren't impressed. When we did get moving we went for about 4 hours north until we reached the start of Lake Titicaca, where we would be spending the next few days. The lake itself is the largest in South America and the highest navigatable lake in the world. We still had a long way to go but first we had to cross part of the lake via 'ferry'. And by ferry I mean a wooden barge that looked like it had not been maintained for 50 years. Luckily we weren't allowed to stay on the bus and had to cross by boat. The boat cost 14p and to date has to be the best 14p I've spent as I really didn't want to get on the barge.
45 minutes later we reached a little town called Copacabana on the Bolivia/Peru border. I can assure you this isn't the place the song was written about!! We had a quick lunch and then changed buses to head to the border. This is the last border crossing of our trip and it had to be the easiest. The Bolivian exit guy stamped the passport without looking and then the Peru entry guy stamped us in without looking.
Back on the bus it was another 2 hours before we reached Puno. This would be where we were spending the night before heading out onto the lake. The next night on the lake we would be staying with an indigenous family. In order to be welcomed we had to buy them some gifts so we went to the local market and got them some cooking oil, rice, onions and carrots. We then went to dinner and had an early night.

Lake Titicaca - Day 50 - 18/11/2012 (Sunday)
After breakfast we left our hotel to jump on the boat. Our transport to the port was in the form of Peruvian limousines. Basically a guy on a bike and a couple of seats at the front. It was an interesting experience going through rush hour traffic. There were 9 of these bike things and all the guys driving were racing each other. Our bike came 3rd! At the port we jumped on our boat and headed out onto the lake. Our first stop was some floating islands. These are indigenous people who escaped the Spanish invasion buy building islands out of reeds and floating off onto the lake. We stopped at one of the islands and got off the boat. The reeds on the island were really soft and it made it feel like you were walking on a water bed. We sat around and list ed to how they made the islands. As the bottom is in the water and rotting they have to constantly add new layers of reeds to the top. Afterwards we went into one of there houses and spoke to one of the girls. It was all very strange. After our house visit they took us outside and tried a hard sale of there souvenirs. Some of the girls including Sarah had gone to another house and they came out wearing all sorts of outfits. The last part of the trip was to get a wicker boat over to another island. 16 of us jumped on this tiny boat and when we set off it was clear that two five year old girls were rowing. After about 5 minutes we'd kind of drifted but not gone anywhere so Simon got up in front and helped the other girl row. A whole bunch of kids had got on the boat and sand 2 songs and then insisted on us tipping them. When we made it to the other side we jumped on our main boat and set off. It was a shame the islands had been ruined by tourists. They wanted money for everything and tried to make way to many hard sales of there stuff.
We got on the boat just as it started raining which was good luck but with the rain came the wind and that made the 3 hour crossing to the next island rather rough.
On the next island we stopped for some lunch and the guide told us loads of history about the island we were on. After lunch we set off for another 2 hours to the place we'd be staying the night. When we arrived we were assigned into families and taken to the local school. The idea of this was to play the locals at a game of football. But first we played another group of tourists to see who went on to play the locals. We won but running around after a football at this altitude got us panting. We put up a good fight against the locals but they cheated by being offside constantly and one pushed me over on the concrete and I hit the back of my head fairly hard and after that they won 2-1. They played some more games and then after the football came the celebration. This involved dressing us up like them. For the guys it was a poncho but for the girls it was 4 dresses and numerous other things. It wasn't overly flattering. We did some photos then they showed us some dances which we then had to copy. We weren't that good but gave it ago anyway. They then joined in and we had a spontaneous dance to.
By this point it was starting to get dark so they took us to our family house. There was only 2 of us per family. Our house seemed to be a long way from the town. Once at our house we were shoved into a side room and we assumed they said wait for us to come knock for dinner. About 30 minutes after they came and got us and lead us into the kitchen. We gave them our gifts a d then sat down and were served soup straight away. We sat there with the mother, father and daughter and not one of them said a word to us or each other. Before we'd finished out potato soup, we were served with rice and potato. Again in silence we ate. When we finished we started to finish up our tea. The split second we put my cup down we were told to go to bed. It was just turning 7pm so we didn't know what else to do. We sat up for a bit but boredom set in so we went to sleep.

Lake Titicaca/Puno - Day 51 - 19/11/2012 (Monday)
At 3:45am I woke to a loud bang. A few seconds alter there was another. They started getting faster and louder to the point that when I shouted at Sarah she couldn't hear me. We soon worked out it was a hail storm and on the tin roof it was so loud. It lasted for about 45 minutes and at some points it was deafening. It turns out that everyone in the group was woken up by this. As we'd gone to bed so early it was hard to get back to sleep.
Just before 8 the father knocked for us and we went for breakfast. This consisted of some fried bread and a boiled egg. When we'd finished the mother showed us some woollen llamas but we Werner sure if they were for sale or not so didn't really ask. It was then time to start our morning activity. As part of our staying we had to help out for a couple of hours with whatever needed doing. As we couldn't communicate we had no idea what we were meant to be doing. We sat outside and watched the father create some kind of tool. Once he'd done it handed it to Sarah and he gave me one he'd made before. We walked down the road after him and before long we came across a couple of pigs and 4 piglets. The 2 pigs were tied up so he loosened them and we started walking them across the town. We walked for ages and tired to keep the pigs on track. After quite a while we reached a field and tied to 2 pigs up and carried on walking. We reached another field and he showed us what he wanted to do. He dug up he ground with a pick axe and we had to them smash the large lumps into smaller pieces. It was hard work but it was good to do some exercise. He kept making us sit down every 10 minutes for a break. After about an hour we'd done 90% of the field but he must of got bored and told us to stop. He then took us on a walk up the hill to show us the surrounding area and the islands on the lake. After that we walked back to the house and he put us back in our room. 40 minutes later they knocked on the door as lunch was served. It was only 11 so we weren't exactly hungry. However we had another bowl of soup and then a large plate of something that looked like fish but was cheese, rice, potatoes and some weird black ball things. We could only eat about half and when we were down they put us back in our room. A little while later they collected us and took us to the boat and we all said good bye.
It had to be the strangest 24 hours of my life but we cool to see and do.
2 hours later we were back in the town and back in the hotel. Knowing we had a long bus journey the next day we went to the supermarket and some how ended up in a pub. After a few drinks we went back to the hotel to meet the rest of the group and went for dinner.