Puno, Peru

Yesterday we crossed into Peru. From Copacabana it was only about 15 minutes to the border, then two more hours to the town of Puno, where we are now. We are still on the shores of Lake Titicaca, just on the Peru side now. So far, Peru looks just like Bolivia. The food is pretty much the same and people dress about the same. Things aren´t quite as cheap as they were in Bolivia, but this part of Peru is by no means expensive. We took yesterday afternoon to walk around a bit and find the market to buy groceries. We also booked a tour to Las Islas Flotantes (floating islands).

 the arch that separates Bolivia from Peru

The streets of Puno are packed with little taxis like these. Its basically a motorcycle with a cover on it.

This is another kind of taxi in Puno. We took one from the bus station to our hostel when we first got here. It was a little scary because the driver kept jumping in front of cars.

This morning we took the tour of the floating islands. There is a whole group of people that live on a series of islands that have been made from reeds. They are only about four miles off the shore, and they are truly floating. When we walked on the islands, we could see water coming up through the reeds. The people that live on the islands use the reeds for almost everything. They live in houses built from reeds, use boats made from reeds, and even eat the reeds. It was pretty amazing to see the way that these people choose to live, even in 2011.

Most of the women´s income comes from making crafts to sell to tourists. The men fish and are constantly maintaining the islands to keep them afloat.

We each tasted a reed! It was kind of like a softer version of celery, but with no flavor.

We took a ride on this boat made of reeds to get from one island to another.

That about sums up Puno. We only had one day here and tomorrow we are headed to Cuzco.