Wednesday 2 May 2012

Day 31 - Puno, Peru (18 April 2012)

Day 31 - Puno, Peru (18 April 2012)

Another day, and Im still not feeling better.  Im starting to think I should see a doctor, lets see how I am feeling after another day.  This morning we arise early, which is not a problem as we are still on Bolivian time (an hour ahead of Peru).  We have our floating island tour this morning, this should be very interesting!  We get picked up a bit later than scheduled as the street our hostal is on is blocked because of a school parade.  It must be a sports parade as each kid is dressed up in either their football, volleyball or basketball uniform.  When we are finally picked up we head on down to the waterfront and board a boat that will take us to the floating islands.  This boat was alot quicker than that bloody Isle Del Sol boat, and it had a banyo (toilet) on board so was good.  We arrived at one of the floating islands after about 20-30 minutes.  It was incredible, I cant believe people would actually want to live here! I guess they wouldnt need to pay any rates, or would they? Im not sure.  The island was about the size of the area between the 22 metre line and the goal line on a rugby field, including width (if that big!!!).  The island is made of reeds, and if they notice the island is sinking, the just place more reeds on top!!! The islands are anchored by a stick and rope.  The sticks are placed in the shallow parts of the lake which are identifiable from the weeds sticking out of the lake (about 2-3 metres deep in these parts).  We hang around on the island for about 45 minutes, just looking at the 'locals' homes, and also fending off the locals who are trying to sell their goodies.  We then sit in the restaurant that is on the island, but we dont buy anything as we are about to head to a different island.  We catch a reed boat to the next island.  It takes us about half an hour or so as the boat is being rowed by two local ladies.  It costs us 10 Soles each to catch this boat but it was a good ride.  I have never been on a reed boat before!  We do the same on this island as we did on the other island, and then we head back on the main boat and cruise back to the Puno waterfront and end the tour.  Today Ann is also not feeling the greatest so we decide to have a quiet afternoon, which included visiting the supermarket, booking our bus ticket to Cusco which is on a bus that stops five times on the way at important locations, and watching a movie (it started raining in the afternoon so was good movie weather).  We then had another early dinner and early night and the bus left at 7am the next morning.

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