Bring out yer dead !!!

Ever seen the classic scene from The Holy Grail? And wondered what it has to do with Puno, Peru?
Well, then you're a little strange, but I'll get to that.

For today, we're in Puno, a city just across the border from Bolivia in Peru, on the shores of Lake Titicaca (which is impressively large - don't skip a trip if you get over there). Our second land border crossing was interesting. We sort of hopped off the bus, walked a few hundred metres across a bridge, and wound up in Peru.


We wandered around town and took the obligatory autophoto in the main square.


And this is how they do in downtown Puno. There wasn't a lot of cats around, so the dogs sort of pick up the slack.
And Monty Python? Well, it turns out in Puno that the garbage trucks play a tune. We were out to dinner in a nice little place on a small street - actually, most the streets were small- and a garbage truck rolled by. I thought it was an ice cream truck for a sec, as the Peruvian version of Greensleeves wafted through the night, then people started flooding out of houses and shops, arms full of rubbish, to chuck in the back of the truck. The driver just has to cruise about with the stereo playing. Nice work.

And this isn't the place we were out for dinner at. But it was our first introduction to the ubiquitous Andean music band at every restaurant with a chance of a tourist.

There were six of us in the joint that night, tourists, that is.

Happily we were joined by 10 or so band members, along with a procession of dancers.

For two hours.

We managed to book a day trip to the Uros Islands for the next day - and it was pretty good. Some of the other people on the tour were dickheads, but not too bad - really the first sort of tour group people we came across.

This one is a shot of one of the reed islands, made of reeds, with houses, made of reeds, and boats, made of reeds.

And in the background - reeds.


Here is the livestock pen - rabbits and guinea pigs - cows being less than practical on a floating island made of cow food.



A longer shot of one of the islands. There are about 40 islands with a few hundred people living there, although they actually count by family group, not individuals.


This one shows how they make the islands. The reeds actually grow in a shallower area, and they cut chunks out with the roots still attached but floating. then they stack the reeds on top in a cross hatched pattern after tying chunks together to make a bigger island. Eventually the reeds break down and they just keep adding more - I guess one day they need a new one. Once it gets a bit crowded, say more than ten families, they just make a new island as well.



They have a school, too, but it's actually permanently attached, although the playground floats.


Then we jumped back on the boats for the trip to Taquile Island.


Fotos de la isla Taquile la vez proxima.

Chao por hoy.