I’m going to begin this blog in a rather pessimistic way but in all honestly I don’t think you really have to go to either Puno or Copacabana. Puno was our first stop and due to bus timings it meant we had to stay their for 2 nights. Actually I take it back it is worth going to Puno but only for a quick layover so you can have a tour of the lake titaca but then leave. The first thing I noticed was no one was going to our hostel on the Peru hop, normally we have a couple more but nope none for Iguana Hostel and now I know why. We turned up to this neon green building and rung the bell. A small Peruvian women probably in her young 20s opened the door smiling like a Cheshire Cat. Most likely because we were the first human life she had seen in ages. The hostel was Barron and our room looked like someone got bored while redecorating. There was also this smell which was just awful, almost like damp to which we discovered was coming from the upstairs ‘paradise sauna and spa’. I just couldn’t get my head around the place and get around the thought we were spending two days here… shit.

The first evening in Puno we ended up sort of moving from restaurant, to cafe and then to bar just so time moves quickly. The weather was truly awful so Puno in February really isn’t very pleasant. Coming to South America I thought I was going to be so dark within the first month but it’s their rainy season so I think I’m paler than when I came. And I write this about to spend 8 days in stormy Cusco but I believe Lima is hot so from there our last 3 months will be bronzed. Slightly depressed Kate and I decided to put some make up on and go sit in a hotel bar. After 3 nearly 4 hours we decided to move and go to another bar where I had a hot chocolate. Unfortunately, even though briefly we considered checking in somewhere we went back to our hostel and set our alarm for super early ready for our tour around lake titaca!

So the city of Puno sits on the edge of Titicaca. From Puno you can get to visit the famous Floating Reed Islands of the Uros people. Honestly, it was incredible and I was just in awe of how they were living. The Floating Reed Islands are made entirely of Totora reed and their houses made of materials they have access to. We were shown examples of how they create things and the Uros people almost did a performance for us including dancing and singing. We were also invited into their homes and then went on a boat ride to the main island. After this we went to The islands of Taquile and Amantani. We had an amazing local cooked lunch which was a huge trout! Overall, the experience was amazing but the whole time I had this weird feeling that I couldn’t shift. It felt quite invasive and the Urus people were using the kids to get money out of us. There was a dynamic to it that I didn’t like. So it would be interesting to see if anyone has written about this. On our return to Puno we went and had some pisco sours followed by a nice sleep until 7am…

Then the next section of our journey was Puno to Copacabana which didn’t take too long and we had a quick layover here, about 5 hours but 4 was taken over by a tour. Copacabana is in Bolivia, so yes we crossed the border. The border crossing was really easy and obviously the first thing Kate and I did was go check out the kiosk to see what new snacks Bolivia had to offer! And yes I to was initially confused by Copacabana and I did think of the song but that ones in Brazil.

The tour in Copacabana was great and we had a lovely very talkative group. Copacabana itself it’s cute and is a little lake town of titaca. Everywhere you looked was “2×1 mojitos” so is definitely tourist built. When we met our group I was very tired so perhaps came off a little unapproachable. However, I have decided this is okay especially when you’re travelling for 4 months I do think you can pick and choose your energy levels. We were first given the choice of sitting up deck or lower, of course as we were all European and saw sun we said up…. about and hour after roughing it up on the freezing deck we all decided to carefully make our way down feeling like pirates at sea. We then had a short but nice tour of the mythical Isla del sol. Then we had a choice to boat of walk to Isla de la Luna. Kate and I decided to skip the walk (feeling a bit tired after the colca canyon) and get to the island early to read our kindles in the sun, which was lovely. It was on this trip we met two guys, one from England and one from Poland. They were both the worst kind of travellers. All they spoke about was drugs drugs and drugs, “Monday coke, Tuesday coke, maybe Wednesday I’ll have a break”… The ahayyusca chat out here is huge and so boring. I understand if you really want a shamanic experience for some healing but the chat about it makes it sound like some party drug and it’s done my head in. Unfortunately, we bump into the Polish boy in La Paz but I made sure it was short and sweet.

Finally, we arrived to a gloomy La Paz. Our hostel Selina is quite out of the way which was also annoying but oh well finally a good comfortable bed… with a broken curtain rail and bunk buddy that definitely has a case of the travellers bug…