At Copacabana I had half an hour to wander around before my bus left for Puno (after I remembered to get my passport out my rucksack, I had to wander surrepticiously past a guard who was checking them when we got off at the ferry point). The post office, which I wanted to go to was shut, so any postcards from Bolivia will have a Peruvian stamp on them. Copacabana itself looked a bit scruffy, with lots of building sites, and it smelled. There were a few nice wee nooks, but I wasn't too disappointed to have given it a miss. I then left my jacket in the bus company office and nearly boarded the next bus without it, I was having quite a day! The next bus soon crossed the border, there I briefly spoke to another Scottish guy, from Kircaldy originally. Thats 2 other scots in SA now! I also tried to take the guards stamp with me when I left the customs office! The journey along the lake side was quite scenic, especially between the ferry and Copacabana
I got in to Puno about 5 and walked quite a way through markets with my rucksack, something I hadn't done for a while as when travelling with others a taxi becomes a reasonable option. I booked a bus tour to Cuzcho two days later, changed money and checked into quite a nice wee hostal, in a single room (well it had 3 beds in it) as I was ready for a rest and some privacy. It had a nice hot shower and a tv for some olympic watching, though it was a bit chilly. That night I had Alpaca for tea, yum, and zero cholesterol apparently, err great.
Next day I'd booked a tour to some of the islands on the lake. It seemed a bit of a farce at first when we weren't on the boat we expected, and more and more people kept getting shepherded on till it was quite packed. No brits now, once in Peru the demographics changed, there were more people, more older, more younger, lots of Americans and Spannish appeared. The first stop was on the Uros floating Islands, which was pretty cool.
They are, like it says on the tin, floating islands, made from blocks of the root systems of the local reeds lashed together and then covered with layer after layer of reeds. The houses and everything else were made of the reeds too. We got quite an informative demonstration and talk, but soon it was off to the proper island of Taquile. This was a 3 hour journey on the boat (only 30km, it was a slow boat). There it was a relatively stiff climb (especially at altitude) up to where we had a talk about local customs, lunch (including an infusion of local mint, which looked suspiciously like a stick in hot water), a very amaturish local dance show (crap might be a better word) and then we climed up to the local town square on the top of the hill. The island was very picturesque, quite Mediterranian looking. It was soon time to get back to the boat for the 3 hours back home. I hadn't brought my book, just my guide book, but I'd been talking to a Swedish girl at lunch and did so a lot of the way back. In the end it was a lot of travelling for not much sight seeing, but I think it's the only real way to see the lake and I quite like being on boats. The sun here is very penetrating so I hid in the inside deck most of the journey.
It was going to be another early 6am start to Cuzcho the next day and I hadn't been sleeping well, so it was a pretty early night, after trying to get this damn blog up to date!
Copacabana from the bus.
Me on the floating islands.
On Taquile Island.
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