So we woke up a little later than expected and mis-read the Lonely Planet thinking that the bus ride from Arequipa to Puno was only 3 hours but ended up being 6.5 hours so we arrived in Puno – “the largest city on Lake Titicaca” a little later than expected 7pm. Puno is a city on Lake Titicaca, which is the highest lake in the world sitting around 3800 meters, with dimensions of 175 km by 65 km length to width, it is quite amazingly beautiful. Being the altitude there is 3800 metres we both were suffering from major headaches and went straight to bed. We booked a half day tour of the floating islands for 9am and were off to Uros Islands. There the local ladies showed us how they create a floating island. They showed us that the local people cut the reed roots, tie them together in metre square bundles, tie each bundle together, throw fresh reeds on top and then anchor the island down to avoid floating away. The Uros Islands consist of about 42 artificial islands with a population of 2000 in total. Their number one income is tourism. The islands were very neat like walking on a water bed... very bouncy. The people were very nice. Their typical dress is very bright and they showed us their homes and handicrafts. We bought a small blanket art piece and then took a reed boat ride over to another island. We then went back to the mainland of Puno where we eat at the market and bought some warm clothes for the Inca Trail when we arrive in Cusco, which we have convinced ourselves to complete no matter the cost. Scott has been battling the stomach flu for the last couple of weeks and so we stayed in tonight and got caught up on the blog and left for Bolivia the next morning.
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