The Peruvian gateway to Lake Titicaca is the town of Puno and we arrived while the local people were celebrating the town's birthday - 327 years old, apparently. South Americans love to party and it seems it's any excuse for a fiesta. Everyone had lined the streets to enjoy a procession of costume clad dancers accompanied by brass bands, each blasting their own Peruivan jive. There was plenty of street food around too, so we tucked into a chicken sandwich - but why do the Peruvians always put crisps on their sandwiches!?!

The following day we woke early as we were off on a tour of Lake Titicaca's islands; Uros, Amantaní and Taquile. But there was a problem - yesterdays street lunch had come back to haunt Steph. She was suffering with a touch of mild food poisoning. Not wanting to cancel the trip, we jumped on the boat. Steph hoped she would feel better as the morning progressed. Our first stop was the Uros Islands. Completely man-made out of lake reeds, the islands are basically floating rafts. Each family builds and lives on their own island, making everything they need out of the lake reeds, including their houses, boats and crafts. They even eat the reeds as a quick snack. It was all amazing stuff but Steph was struggling and began feeling worse by the minute. We needed to head back to dry land ASAP, so we abandoned our tour and jumped on the next boat back to shore. Steph spent the rest of the day in bed.

48hrs later Steph was feeling much better and we were once again heading out to Lake Titicaca. Back at the Uros islands, there was a touch of déjà vu while we were told (for a second time) all about the floating islands and the people that live there, but a least Steph could enjoy it this time. The next island on the tour was Amantaní, where we would spent the night. All accommodation is "home stay" which allows visitors to get a true sense of island life. The islanders organise accommodation for all the tourists according to a strict rotary system to ensure all families will benefit. We got lucky and were staying with the community chief, his wife Isabella and their daughter Jasinya. The chief's house was in a prime spot overlooking the lake. While we ate our home cooked potato lunch, we enjoyed the fantastic view and pondered over our family's idilic life on Amantaní island with no electricity, no roads and no cars. Later, we climbed the highest hill on the island to watch the sunset - an amazing sight and would have been perfect if it wasn't for a group of noisy middle-aged Italian tourists singing Italian folk songs at the top of their voices! Back at the "home stay" we had dinner with our family and were given traditional outfits for a local "party". The families daughter, Jacinya, walked us across the island in the pitch black to the venue. Expecting to find all the local people dancing and singing to live music, we were disappointed to find a hall full of tourists clumsily dancing along to a stereo system - not quite what we had in mind for our traditional island party! Still, we made the best of it, with Jacinya showing us a few local dances.

The following morning we said goodbye to our host family and continued our island tour to Isla Taquile. Textiles are popular in all of Peru but on this island it is the men, not the women who are the master knitters and it was very unusual to see groups of men sitting in the main town square knitting hats, belts and shirts! But it has to be said, their handy work was superb. For lunch we ate a local Titicaca delicacy, fresh trout from the lake - it was delicious. It was then time to board our boat back to Puno - a three hour journey, so time for an afternoon siesta!

Check out ‘Peru - Lake Titicaca’ at http://gallery.me.com/peterjprice/101815