Day 50 - Puno

After three long weeks of residing in Cusco, one of the hardest places to leave in the world, we decided to head to Puno, a small border-town on the banks of Lake Titicaca. But before we did, we all headed out a few more times to the wicked clubs in Cusco. I also bought a piñata for angie, tristan and casper, to celebrate their joint birthdays, and roped about 5 other hostallers into bashing it till the sweets came out.





We'd been warned that the ride to Puno would be a cold one. That said, Sam decided to wear her army shorts whilst the rest of us wrapped up in about 30 layers each. Getting off to a bad start, I lost the necklace that tristan gave to me at the bus station, then realised that our "semi-cama" bed-seats were actually "non-cama" and hugely uncomfortable. It was July 4th too, so we horrendously had to wait at numerous road blocks, as the bus got pelted with rocks. And then, despite not being able to sleep, I awoke at 6am, freezing cold, to find the inside of the bus windows were FROZEN. Horrendous. But we made it safely to Puno, a dusty old town with crappy hotels and freezing temperatures.



Nestled on the shore of the magnificant Lake Titicaca, which I should add is ENORMOUS, the town itself isn't that hot. But after a few hours recovery sleep from the bus, i shot round the corner and spent an hour sorting out when my boy tristan could come out to argentina for 3 weeks in 6 weeks time. Very exciting. That afternoon, we booked ourselves on a boat to go to see the famous reed islands, a set of floating islands built solely out of reeds taken from the shores of the lake.



The boat ride out was uneventful, but arriving at the islands was kinda exciting. There are literally hundreds of small islands, with houses and stuff built on them, but they are totally floating and totally not very safe feeling. We had a run around one of the islands, which was fascinating for about 10 minutes. But then the tourism elements kicks in. Dan spotted some old fat bolivian woman running to get the finger puppets the minute the tourist boat came near. And you don't actually get to see anyone who really lives there. Or works there. Just people selling tat. Or charging extortionate amounts to ride the reed boats. But that said, what else is there to do on a floating island.



After dark, we sailed back, freezing cold and huddling to conserve heat, then booked ourselves on a border-crossing tourist bus to the fun Bolivian town of Copacabana.