Puno - Floating Reed Islands

Our friend snoozing on the boat trip to the floating islands
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Saturday 4^th August – Copacabana – Puno

Unfortunately today we had to move on from Copacabana, after enjoying our retreat here and new hobby of hiking. We booked a bus for 9.30am, so it was a early rise and off we went. The most significant event of the day was the boarder crossing into Peru. Again we were dropped at typical border town, sprawling with fruit stalls and people trying to exchange your last Bolivianos into Peruvian soles at an extortionate rate! The bus that we booked with drops you at the Bolivian immigration office and waits for you on the Peruvian side. So we went through all the formalities thankfully with no problems as we had kept the exit papers for Bolivia and re-boarded the bus. The only annoying thing was we were expecting to produce our yellow yellow fever certificate, but there was no request so we wondered why we had paid the $100 to get a nasty injection!

Wedding on the floating islands
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The bus soon arrived at Puno...well, it did not take long for all of us to feel home sick from Copacabana! All the travel guides advise to get out of Puno as quickly as possibly. So we booked our onward journey for Monday, negotiated a good rate at Hotel (with cable so Ants could watch the Formula 1 race the following morning). Well lets say you get what you pay for with accommodation, the room was ok ,but we were greeted with a not so clean toilet, which was not the best way to greet paying guests... Jo was far from impressed. But as these countries require a lot of patience, we settled in and went for lunch. Thankfully we found a really clean place with a good tourists menu.

Getting dinner ready
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Unfortunately Ants and Helen were still not feeling the best so they headed back the the Hotel and as a group we decided to leave Puno ASAP. Leigh and Jo therefore headed back to the bus station to change our tickets to leave this great place on Sunday! We decided to walk back to the terminal and went through the buzzing central market, taking in the sights and noticing that hygiene (i.e. People using streets for toilets, leaving chicken and meats in the baking sun) had not improved from Bolivia! When we arrived back to the terminal, we managed to get a refund from the company that we had bought our original ticket from. and found a company that left for Cusco every hour. So we reserved for Sunday and headed back to town.

Markets in Puno
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Feeling lazy we decided to catch a bike taxi back...well the poor boy! We must have been the 2 heaviest customers he had ever had! It was not long before he was puffing really hard then made the decision to give up cycling and started pushing us! We felt so bad that we got off about ¾ of the way and walked back! We don't think these bikes are designed for the NZ bred, more for the smaller Peruvians! After a spending the rest of the afternoon on the internet, we headed back to meet Helen and Ants for dinner, but they were still not feeling the best so after hunting around for a nice restaurant we went back to the same restaurant for dinner. There was a really cool local band playing with dancers and we had a superb meal – Jo with Kingfish spirals on a bed of rice with trout and prawns and Leigh another pizza (starting to be a common trend for him). We ended the day with some English speaking TV for the first time in about a month!

Chilling on a reed boat
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Sunday 5^th Puno – Floating Reed Islands – Cusco.

Thankfully we woke up to Helen knocking on the door, her and Ants were feeling better and were ready for the long day ahead. We checked out around 8.30am and caught a taxi down to the bus terminal to drop our bags off. We then jumped back in a taxi to the center of town and found a beautiful “Wellington style” cafe for breakfast. After enjoying a longish meal, we again jumped in a cab and headed for the Port.

The sole purpose of going to Puno is to visit the floating reed islands so we quickly purchased tickets and boarded the next departing boat. The trip was suppose to take around 20mins, but as with time on this side of the world, we have learnt to double it! So we arrived at the first floating island around 40mins later. WOW, visiting these islands are very sweet and sour! The islands including the houses, boats, floor etc. are made entirely from reeds which grow in the lake. It is an amazing sight! The downside is they rely almost 100% on tourism, so as soon as you arrive there is a need and a demand to get your money! The islands themselves are like walking on a water bed, really soft and bouncy. The homes are very basic, (as you would expect)! Each island has a line of ladies selling handicrafts. The saddest thing for us was seeing the children. They are unfortunately stuck on theses very small islands and it was at times like being in a zoo. There is just not much to do, no animals or crops and no where really to run!

After an explanation of the islands from an elder, we boarded a reed boat, went for a loop-cruise on the lake before being dropped off at a neighbouring island. Well, again there was a hand out for money! We were asked to pay 5 Soles per person halfway through the ride. No one had explained this to us before boarding. It's not that we have a problem paying, its the fact you are mislead and put in a situation you can not get out of. Thankfully there was 4 of us, we gave some small change and got off the boat. The next island we visited (all in very close proximity to each other), was having, believe it or not, a wedding! We all thought that was a little odd to celebrate your wedding on such a busy tourists place. Nevertheless we enjoyed the music and scene, but growing more intolerant of being pestered for money etc and feeling like we were in a zoo, we decided to get an earlier boat back to the mainland. We had all been looking forward to the reed islands and were all disappointed at what we saw and how you are treated. We understand that there isn't a lot of wealth on the islands like the rest of the country, but strangely the living conditions were not half as bad as what we have come across! Luckily we caught an earlier boat as we arrived just in time to pick up some snacks, visit the nasty bus station loos then jumped on the bus to Cusco. The bus ride was typical of both Bolivia and Peru, very busy and stopping regularly.

However we arrived into Cusco (bang on time) at 9pm and headed for our hostel. The hostel was fine, set around a beautiful court yard. Also very quiet, the exact opposite of Puno, where some of the rooms were hired out per hour. After heading out for a quick bite we headed to bed, it had been a very long day!