We had booked 3 nights here and within an hour of arriving had cancelled the last of them, leaving us time to sleep, have a trip to islands on Lake Titicaca, sleep and get the heck out of Dodge.

Now, we should stress that we stayed at a lovely hostel where we had a private room, sharing a living room with another couple. The room and the couple were fab, and it was excellent to chill out in our living room, cook our own dinner and watch telly (oh, and watch Mamma Mia but let's not ever talk about that. EVER.). But the town of Puno is grim- it's only redeeming feature is that it is on the banks of one of the best-named lakes in the world. But they've messed that up, building
ugly structures so you can't see the lake from town, and not finishing the buildings so it looks like a construction site.

Right, the boat trip to the islands. The very helpful hostel boss booked us on a trip leaving the morning after we arrived and we, our roommates, and some other folk got picked up at 630am to set sail for Islas Flotantes de Uros (a group of floating islands inhabited by the Uros people) and Isla Taquile (beautiful island inhabited by isolated people). Each was interesting but SO touristy.

The people on the floating islands lived their own unique existence, building and maintaining islands made entirelly from reeds, with reed houses, reed boats etc... And then twenty years ago tourists came along. Now they exist entirely for tourists, waiting for the next boatload, showing them around and trying to milk every penny out of them. Twenty years ago there were 10 islands, now there are 45 to support tourist demand. Fair enough- no resentment felt to the enterprising Uros, but it leaves you feeling pretty used and guilty. The counter argument, of course, is that without the tourists, the race could have died out entirely. Maybe the lesser of two evils has won out. Glad, though, that we did not go to an island where the women did a dance and the children begged (as cited by other travellers).

After a ride on their reed boat (pretty dicey, obviously cost extra, ultimately unremarkable), we got back on board our boat for two and a half hours. On a positive note, on each of the long legs of the boat journey, one of us had an EXCELLENT nap. Isla Taquile is well out into Lake Titcaca (sometimes cited as highest navigable lake in the world, and unarguably massive- it just looks like the sea but is at 3800m above sea level), provides great views and is peopled by an isolated community who have some great customs:
- unmarried men wear a red and white wooly hat, hanging to right if dating, hanging to left if up for it and to the rear if not interested. Married men wear red wooly hats. Important community
people wear crazy multicoloured wooly hats. Boys, meanwhile, don't have their hair cut until they are six, before donning the backward-hanging hat.
- all the men hanging around the main square were knitting said hats as they chatted.
- illnesses are diagnosed by sleeping with a guinea pig in a sack next to you. In the morning your sickness is trasferred to the animal, so you cut him open and see which of his organs look ill.
- when a woman is set to marry, rather than giving hubby a wedding ring, she knits him a waistband using thread combined with her own hair.
- women on this island, and on Uros Islands, wear up to 28 petticoats AT THE SAME TIME. This is, of course, to make their bum and hips look bigger so that they appear better at breeding.

Unfortunately, their main custom these days is getting cash from tourists. Again, we felt like we were simultaneously invading their privacy and being ripped off. Maybe that means balance, but it feels more like everyone's a loser. They did serve us a cracking lunch of soup and trout though.

Oh yeah, how did we get here? We came by a nice bus that stopped at various ruins etc. on the way. It was called Inka Express an recommended in Lonely Planet. Unfortunately, since LP was published two years ago, they've doubled the price. If you're in the area, by all means use Inka Express (or their rivals, First Class), but tell them you don't want to do the excursions en route- they charge you half as much and you can pay as you go on the way, at a much much lower cost.

Still, it was great to see 'the Sistine Chapel of South America'- a wonderful combination of Incan and colonial styles and religions- and Raqchi- Inkan ruins including their biggest temple ever, with 22 columns to support the roof in all.

So we leave Peru thinking 'what a lovely country, blighted by feeling ripped off all the time'.