Puno, Lake Titicaca, Cococabana and La Paz

Parade in Cococabana..
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We left Cusco after a couple of days rest and headed onto Puno in the South of Peru. The bus driver obviously had an important appointment to make as we made the journey in record time with the usual emphasis on safety! We checked into a basic hostel and checked out what the town had to offer. It is a busy little town but it is mainly just a stopping off point for traveling out to the islands on Lake Titicaca. We booked a trip out for the next day on one of the boats and then our bus ticket out of town for the following day.

Parade in Cococabana..
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The next morning we headed out on Lake Titicaca from the Port in Puno. The water around the port is green and slimy which takes a little bit from the lake there. However once you are out of the port the Lake looks fantastic. The first Islands we made our way to were the famous Uros islands or "Floating Islands". These islands are floating on a mixture of turf and reeds and these reeds cover the surface that you walk on. The reeds are added to twice a year with fresh ones as the ones underneath continue to decay. The people there live a simple life and usually survive on fish and other natural resources. However the islands are beginning to get quite commercialised and the people travel to the mainland and bring back more processed food these days.The women are quite large compared to the men and don't seem to over exert themselves throughout the day.

Floating Islands..
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After visiting two of these islands we made our way onto Lake Taquille for the rest of the day. The weather was beautiful and really warm at this stage. This Island is not a floating one but it has its own unique traditions. We had a nice couple of Kms walk from the dock on the island to the village centre and this provided us the opportunity to see the way of life of these people. A lot of the men were either doing some really manual farm work or else were knitting away! The women were knitting also but apparently the men are better at it here..We grabbed some food on the island and chilled out for the rest of the day before we had to head back to Puno. The journey back was quite eventful as we ran into a thunder and lightening storm. Thankfully, the Captain negotiated his way home without much bother even though he couldn't see out the front window and there wasn't a wiper to be seen. Happy to be back on dry land we stocked up for our next bus journey to La Paz via Cococabana.

View down on floating Islands..
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We stopped off at the border of Peru and Bolivia the next day to get our passports stamped before we got to Cococabana. We nearly ended up missing our bus because we skipped one of the important parts of this procedure and we had to run back to Peru to get it sorted. The bus driver wasn't impressed and wanted to drive on but we managed to convince him to wait a few minutes as we legged it from one side of the border to the other. With that sorted, we arrived in Cococabana to find a festival in full flow. The colours were amazing and everybody seemed to be taking part in one way or another in the parade. The town itself is small but is does have a much nicer port than Puno and a lot of people make their way out to Lake Titicaca from here. We decided not to stay on there and instead make our way to La Paz. The bus was totally overpacked and there were people sprawled along the aisles. We had to cross the Lake on a ferry in a small village after that before we eventually  arrived in La Paz.

Tug O' War
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We were quite surprised with La Paz as it turned out to be a nice enough city for Bolivia. However our two days there were slightly disrupted by a strike around the corner from our hotel. We didn't get to explore the city as much as we would have liked but we weren't going to try and break the blockade line! Our next decision to make was to go to the jungle or else head to the Salt plains in Uyuni. We decided to go to the salt plains as we could visit the jungle in Australia.We spent a day checking out the prices of all the agencies as we didn't have time to waste a day in Uyuni. We managed to get a good price which turned out cheaper then what the rest of out group paid. It really does pay to shop around. Our next problem was whether we could get out of La Paz to reach the train in Ororo. We were told that if we got the bus early we had a chance so it was up at the break of dawn the next morning.  The bus managed to avoid the blockade and we arrived in time for the train in Ororo. The trains are really nice in Bolivia and it was a lovely change from all the buses. We arrived late in Uyuni that night ready for our next trip.