Day 2 - Puno

Yesterday when I said I hoped the shower was hot, well it wasn't! So our day started with mucho friyo showers!

We only had one full day in Puno before we head off to Cusco so we booked ourselves on to a couple of tours with our hostel. Our first tour was to the floating islands of Uros which are on Lake Titicaca. It took around 30 minutes on the boat to get to the floating islands during which our tour guide explained a bit about the islands and the people who live there. The islands are made entirely of reeds and the houses on the islands are made of reeds also.

When we reached the island we had a very warm welcome from the families that live on the small island. We were given a demonstration of how the islands were made and they explained a little bit about their daily lives.

Not only can you make islands, shelters and boats with the reeds, you can also eat them. It tasted a bit like soft celery. I don't think I will be rushing to eat any more reeds anytime soon.

We were then invited to see the islanders home. A lovely lady called Marie who I reckon was around our age kindly welcomed us into her reed hut. She also encouraged us to dress up in some of her clothes which Simon found very entertaining! She was very sweet! We liked her so much, we felt obliged to buy one of her Incan tapestries that she made. Well we hope she made it anyway otherwise we were seriously conned out of £30. She was so pleased that we purchased it, we both got a huge hug and a kiss on the cheek!

We then headed across to another island on the family's boat made entirely of reeds! But not before being seen off with some songs from the ladies. They even did a rendition of row row row your boat for the two English folk!

We got back around 12:30pm and our next tour wasn't until 2pm so we ventured out to the market to look for some lunch. We stumbled across a stall where we sat and had some sandwiches and some fresh juice.

Our afternoon tour took us to Sillustani, a pre Incan cemetery on the shores of lake Umayo, not far from Puno. The tombs are all at various stages of completion which enables you to see how they are created. In the largest tomb which is 12m high they found 35 mummified bodies, which included children. It was really interesting and we were able to walk around them and look inside.

After visiting the tombs, we stopped for a delicious cup of Peruvian coffee and a Dairy Milk Caramel bar. The coffee has to be the most delicious cup of coffee we have had since entering South America.

On the way back to Puno, we stopped at a farmers house to look around and learn about how the native people live. The native people only eat meat on special occasions such as a wedding or religious festival. They therefore get their protein from various types of quinoa which we were shown. We were also shown some other strange vegetables that grow in the area and belong to the potato family and then got to see try some of the food. The strangest thing we ate though was edible clay which is apparently very good for ulcers. You eat it by mixing the clay with water until it forms a paste and then dip a boiled potato in it. It didn't taste that bad as they add a lot of salt to the clay mixture so it was just really salty.

We then had a look around the farmers house which just had one giant bed in it. All of the family sleep together in one bed to keep warm until the children become teenagers, then they sleep in a separate hut. They then have separate huts for the bathroom and kitchen.

It was very interesting and the farmer also had a couple of alpacas, llamas and sheep including a one day old lamb which was very cute!

In the evening we went out for pizza at a place recommended in the Lonely Planet which was delicious! We ordered so much though that we now have leftovers for bus journey tomorrow.Read more