Puno and the Floating Islands

My arrival in Puno (left) was only a few hours after leaving Copa, the boarder crossing into Peru being very stressfree and made all the more enjoyable by the company of a young frenchman called Nicholas. Puno was much bigger than Copa, and much bigger than I had been expecting. Peru was also instantly much friendlier than Bolivia had been, and no less than three locals insisted on helping me find accomodation for the night and my bearings, which was very sweet and only a tiny bit really annoying. My first priority in Puno was to see the famous floating islands, made totally from reeds and anchored in the Peruvian side of the lake. I was able to hop on a boat within the hour and very much enjoyed a few hours spent bouncing about on the tiny, springy islands, each one of which at least 20 people call home. The talk we had about the islands was very interesting, and only slightly smattered with the old "Titi for Peru Kaka for Bolivia" type jokes (shockingly the other way round in Bolivia... hmm). The name of the Lake actually means 'stone coloured Jaguar' in Ketchuan, apparently the shape of the lake looks like one when viewed from above but I'll be darned if I can see it...
After a tour of the island we had visited and some mandatory 'local craft' buying. We got a chance to travel to another island on a reed boad (Left) oared by some young men wearing shirts so white they must be hiding a washing machine somewhere on those islands...
The whole trip was great fun, if a tad commercialised.
After this I decided to treat myself to a great big geeky indulgence, and at the behest of the guidebook who claimed public transport to be too complicated for the silly westerner in Puno paid a ransom to a taxi driver to go and see the oldest vessel on Lake Titikaka, the Yavari. Now as someone who may have a vauge interest in boat slash ship related activities it was a huge point of pride for me that the Yavari is not only British built, but furthermore was built by chaps from Liverpool. I spent a full hour with a dopey grin on my face being shown around the ship by a bemused Peruvian lad, who was impressively prepared for the massive amount of questions I asked, and laughed out loud at my delight at them having a framed letter from Prince Philip asking about the ships' renovation. A lovely afternoon to be spent being throughly British, and the ship was gorgeous and bautifully restored. Annoyed with the exorbitent fare to get to the Yarvari I rsked the public transport to get back, which cost a whopping 13p and was much less coplex than that of La Paz. Oh well, you live you learn. The rest of the day was spent wondering around the juice markets and indulging in the gorgous hot chocolate for roadside cafes in Puno. And the next day i was off... seven hours to Cuzco and a new Loki experience...