Puno & Lake Titicaca 22nd August - 23rd August 2006 We arrive in the midle sized town of Puno after a 6 and 1/2 hour journey, it actually was only supposed to take 5hrs only). Not only that, to top it all off we had booked onto the "Royal class" (champagne backpackers after all let us remind you) bus at a tourist agency only to find that when we arrive at the bus station it's a shabby looking "business class". A queer thing about the bus tickets (in addition to the obvious scam) is that when you book at a travel agency you the have to exchange the receipt for a ticket on the bus (would it not just be easier to ring up the bus company and write out the tickets there and then?, obviously not). Anyway, we arrive in Puno in the late afternoon after more of the same dusty/desert scenery and immediately get a glimpse of lake Titicaca which stretches back as far as the eye can see, not surprising really seeing as it's the biggest lake in South America. Puno sits at an elevation of 3850m ASL ish which is over 2 and half miles high. We check into our hotel and the manager has kindly put us on the third floor. After much huffing and puffing we make it to our room and it takes us about 5 minutes to recover our breath. We head oput and our first impressions of Puno are that it's very touristy. We are getting hassled a lot more now on the streets from beggars to street sellers and it's all a hark back to the days in south east asia. At least these guys accept no for an answer, well kind of anyway. We book a tour to see the floating (Uros) islands and Takille island for the following day then sort out some chores. In the evening we head out for a pizza and avocado salad which is simply divine, whilst eating we are "serenaded" by a local pan pipes group and they are pretty good. Unfortunately the well known "Guantanamera" is starting to grate a bit as we have heard it almost everywhere we have eaten thus far, like I said Peru (or the places we have visited thus far) is rather touristy. The next day we ar up at 6.15am for our tour to the islands and our luck is in today. We had booked on the slow baot to the islands but as luck would have it our tour group boards the fast boat. We stop at the floating islands after about 15 minutes and are treated the the full works, how the islands are constructed, held in place and all the rest of it. It's all very well set up with the "locals" showing us their food stuffs, weavings ect and then one is convieniently given 20 minutes to walk (or rather bounce) around the little island where tempation is just too much as we buy a few gifts. To be fair the message of how these people is gotten across pretty well but these people now rely 100% on the tourists (even to the extent that they can now afford solar panels and satelite TV). Next we are off to a real island, Takille and the views across the super blue lake Titicaca are superb, the sun is shining and it's a great day to be out. We are treated to more "how w used to live" satuff on the island and this time it's a bit more genuine. The highlight has to be the pathetic dancing and singing of some of the older natives who try to "recreate" some big festival they have in early August (and needless to say they totally fail, it's only our humility that stops us laughing out loud). We go for a walk across the island after a moderate local lunch of soup, kingfish and potato chips. We meet some nice Germans who are ever so pleased to be starting their 12 month round the world tour. We think they are both excited and a little depressed after meeting us as we recount some of our highlights then slip into mini dpressiion mode feeling quite homesick. The speedy boat arrives back in Puno in mid afternoon and we chill out for the evening and have a decent pasta meal. Tomorrow we are off to La Paz, Bolivia which is a bit scary as we never really planned on going there at all. Stu is working really hard on Amy trying to get her to ride the "Worlds most dangerous road" which sounds like it should be a really good laugh, stay tuned to see if we complete it alive........ Los of love Stu & Amy.