Ryan had to catch his flight back home so Mike and I left Cusco en route to Puno (elv.3830m). We caught a late night bus and 6 hours later we were in Puno on Lake Titicaca, the highest navigable lake in the entire world. After arriving and getting a quick nap in, Mike and I headed down to the harbour to catch a ride to the Islas Flotantes of the Uros people. These are islands that are actually made from totora reeds and float on the surface of the lake. The Uros use the reeds (which are partly edible) for almost everything in their lives; their homes, boats, and ground are all made from interweaving these reeds to construct what they need. The Uros decided to live on the constructed islands several centuries ago to isolate themselves from the Collas and Incas, and currently eke our their existence from fishing and tourism.
We got a very cheap spanish tour to the islands with our two 12 year old captains. After leaving the harbour we suffered several engine breakdowns, combined with the fact that our boat had loose floorboards and water in the bottom made us a little nervous. I'm not sure if you noticed but the two man team is required, one to steer and one to manually pump the gas into the engine...luckily they got us going again and we were off. We got to an island and sat for a small (completely spanish) presentation by a man who presumably lives there, while I caught very little of what he said it seemed fairly interesting. Of course there were several small souvenir shops on the island to purchase your island goods. There are actually some restaurants on the island though we didn't have time to eat there. Walking on the islands is an experience in itself, it is very soft and if you aren't careful you can actually sink through if you step on a rotten section. The sun was incredibly hot here since it is at such a high elevation but in the shade you would feel quite cold from the cool air.
After a fews hours on Lake Tititcaca we went back to Puno and and I snuck this picture of a peruvian couple on our tour with us. After arriving back to the harbour we took Batman's rickshaw around town and grabbed some dinner before heading back to our hostel. Puno was quite a nice city and a great detour from the rest of Peru.
