Everyone was pretty sore after the treks when we met up with the rest of the group. So it was good that we had a bit of down time. A full free day in Cuzco after a night out with dancing at the local club where tour leaders hook up with tourists as standard!! The next day involved the expected guinea pig tasting. Pete and I decided not to get involved when it was brought out all crispy but with its two buck teeth still grinning at us!

A seven hour bus journey the next day took us to Puno on the edge of Lake Titicaca, the worlds highest navigable lake. Still at altitude though so I was still struggling to breathe!!! Puno was just a stopover for our main purpose, to visit a few islands on the lake.

Our first stop was the floating islands. Before we got here this was all that I thought was on Lake Titicaca so we were a little surprised to see how touristy they are. It's true that people live on these islands and these really are the clothes that they wear but their lives are so dependant on tourism that we felt they It was a bit of a circus. We let them dress us up to take photos and I even bought a souvenir but it didn't really feel like this was something they'd be doing if we weren't around.

This was why our next stop was quite an experience. The lonely planet will tell you that any overnight home stay the lake islands would involve a little awkwardness and they aren't lying.
Amantani Island was to be our home for one night. We were allocated a family in pairs and followed them back home where we sat on our beds twiddling our thumbs waiting for them to call us for dinner. Our banquet was five of the thousands of varieties of potatoes that the Peruvians are famed for. We also had some cheese and a bit of tomato. Yum yum!! Our 'family' tended to leave us in the care of their oldest daughter who spoke a little Spanish as well as the local language, so she quizzed us during mealtimes about our jobs (try explaining 'travel agent' in hand signals), nationalities, marital status, favourite colour etc... All riveting conversation as I'm sure you can imagine. We rushed to finish our meals so we could head outside to play football (at altitude....) with the kids and visit the library that we'd brought books for.

Actually, everyone was very accommodating and by our second meal (stir fry, thank god no potatoes!), we were all dancing together at the party held in pus honour at the local village hall. Traditional dancing = holding hands in a big circle and skipping round for hours on end.

At the time, we were so happy to be leaving straight after a breakfast of pancakes but really we were honoured to see a completely different life from the inside. Where the kids herd the cows before school and the woman taking their knitting with them everywhere (hold on, that's me), traditional dress is standard and only the men are allowed to leave the island for a life outside.

The next day we visited another island, Taquile, for a short hike and amazing fish lunch. Here the men do the knitting and there knitting really rules their lives. Every man wears a hat they've knitted and each hat shows their marital status. However as a single man, make sure you knitting is tight. Your only hope if finding a wife is knitting a hat that will hold water for a certain amount of time.

After this we headed back to Puno for one last night as a group. Obviously this turned into quite a heavy night of Pisco sours and the traditional flaming shots (?????). After just two hours sleep we had to get up, drunkenly pack our bags and head for La Paz on another seven hour bus journey. The hangover kicked in somewhere around the Peru/ Bolivia border crossing!