Puno and Lake Titikaka
After a short bus ride of 5 hours we arrived here in Puno. Jonny and I were struck by the scenery. It was a wonderful change to see green mountains, llamas and lakes, from the desert landscape we have been seeing for the last few days. We were also struck that the Peruvian traditional dress is very much worn here. It was lovely to see ladies out working on the field, wearing vibrant coloured shawls to hold children in, black bowler hats on their heads, and wide bustled skirts over trousers.


Unfortunately the journey made Jonny and I feel fairly rough as we ascended to an altitude of 3800 meters. We have been told about the effects of altitude by fellow travellers during our travels and so were a little apprehensive.
Jonny woke in the night to discover his heart was beating very fast, it felt like it was going to come out of his chest. This was slightly scary! This is fairly common though so don't worry. Apparently, at this altitude there is 20% less oxygen than at sea level, so when your breathing slows down at night the body doesn't get enough oxygen.

When we arrived at our hostel, a slightly snazyish one, we were pounced on by a tourist tout. Having not really learnt our lesson from Nazca we purchased a ticket to the local floating islands from her. Lake Titikaka is the highest navigatable lake in the World and we thought it would be really interesting to see it, especially as we had heard from others and our guide book that the families that lived on these many islands have rich traditions and a very interseting history.
The next morning we were picked up from our hostel and boarded our boat. Instead of the promised reclining seats on the boat, there was a wooden bench with foam on. Woo woo woo we had struck gold! Some of the islands we visited were floating reed beds. These are not rooted to the lake bed and so float. So hence funnily enough they're named 'floating islands'. Periodically after limited rain the lake level drops and so the islands can self root to the bed. To prevent this the inhabitants cast off from the eucaliptis pole that the island is anchored to and tow themsleves to another part of the lake. Prety ingenious, we thought!
The islands are really soft under foot and would make a great place to sleep. We enjoyed the trip to the islands although it was very touristy. One of the islands we visited was the size of a large roundabout in the Uk and had 9 families living on it. It was really awesome that not only their island was made of reeds, their houses, their tables, their chairs, their boats and many other items were too.


Something else we found interesting during our trip was at the way that the young girls would whisper to us. We later discovered that until these girls are married their opinions and place in society is not valued, hence why they speak so quietly. Quite sad really!


We were told on our way home that there was a bus strike the following day so our planned journey to Cusco looked bleak.....