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We had a day bus from Cusco to Puno which took the majority of the day. Up early and it is a shame to miss a day by spending it on the bus but I guess that's how it goes in some places! Once we arrived in Puno we went out for an early dinner and Rudy told us a little more about the city which turns out to be quite dangerous. I had heard things about Puno but wasn't sure how reliable they were.
We were up early the next day to take a boat out on to Lake Titicaca for a two day trip. It was stunning and we made our way to our first stop the Floating Islands of Uros. These are man made islands made out of reeds that grow abundantly in the lake. Local communities even live on these islands and have done for hundreds of years, if not longer. No one is entirely sure of the origin of these islands and how they came to be. But there are more than 100 of them. We landed on one of the islands and met the families living there who explained how the islands are made etc. We also got to try on some of the local traditional outfits which was rather amusing. Afterwards we took a short, and slow, ride on a reed boat to another of the islands. Lizzie and Tom had a go at rowing which looked pretty tricky! We had a few hour journey on the boat to another island on the lake called Taquile Island where we were having lunch. The island was beautiful, we had a short hike up to the centre of the island. The weather was lovely as well so we were able to sit out on a balcony and eat our food. We had trout from the lake which was delicious. We had another short walk around the island after and got back on the boat which took us to Luquina Island where we were staying the night with a local family. When we arrived we were greeted by the local band who played us a tune and we were taken to the school where we proceeded to have a game of football against some of the young boys who lived on the island. It wasn't a complete wipeout but it was hard work with the altitude! Afterwards we dressed again in the traditional clothes and were taught a local dance which we were rather bad at! Finally Lizzie and I were taken to our family's house and we helped sort out the animals for the night before dinner. Dinner was nice, a little awkward with the family as they were very shy. They had a young son who enjoyed showing us around. We had a little room which was quite nice actually, much better than expected. However, that night there was so much rain and hail and on a tin roof it sounded even worse, so we weren't able to get much sleep.
In the morning, we got up and helped with breakfast. After we herded the sheep to a different part of the island although I'm not sure why we did so. We then went to a field to pick lima beans before heading back to prepare the beans and other things for lunch. Once lunch was done it was time to say bye to the family and head back to Puno on the boat. We had a relaxed afternoon as we were all pretty tired from lack of sleep. We had our last dinner in Peru at a traditional restaurant with local music and dances which were very entertaining. The next morning we had another day bus to La Paz, Bolivia. Goodbye Peru, after 3 months!
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