From Cusco we headed for Puno, a large town on the banks of Lake Titicaca, our receptionist in the hostel in Cusco also booked us on the tour to visit the “Floating Islands” and to spend a night on the Island of Taquile, we arrived in Puno at 4am we had been taken to a hostel who would look after our bags while we visited the Floating Islands, as we were not being picked up till 9am we were hoping to get some sleep in the hostel while we waited but there was nowhere to sleep, in the we decided to go for a walk around the town just to pass the time till we were picked up but in Puno there is not really much to see. One 9am came we were collected from the hostel and taken to the harbour to our boat that will take us to the Floating Islands. To sail to the islands takes about 2 hours, and as you approach all that you can see is the roofs in the distance over the top of the huge banks of reeds that completely surround the islands, you sail through reeds along a channel the all of a sudden you pop out in to a large “lake”, its not really a lake but its the best way to describe what you see, as you come in to the centre there is a huge expanse of calm water that is completely surrounded by reeds. All around the inside edge of the reed banks there are 50 plus islands, these islands are made from peat and the reeds. The male members cut large squares of peat from under the water in the reed banks, then they dry them out in the sun a attach them all together using branches about 2 foot in length, once they have enough to make an island about 60 meters sq by about 5 mtrs high, the island is then anchored to the bottom of the lake with rope, once they have this base the top of the island is covered in reed leaves and ever year they add layer after layer to strengthen the island, by the time they have finished most of the island is under the water there was only about 1/2 a meter of the island above the water level. As you step of the boat on the the island you don't know really what to expect! Hard, Soft, Moist? But when you step off its more bouncy than anything, very pleasant to walk on. Each island is made up of one family, when a woman marries a male from another island she has to go to live on that island, every island also has its own mayor (the head male of the family) and all the mayors all meet to discus issues of all sorts, like arguments between islands, marriages and all sorts of other issues, for instance if there are two neighbouring islands arguing the solution would be that one of the islands has to move, which is a easy thing to do as they are only anchored to the lake floor, all they need to do is unanchor the island and float it to a new location, away from the annoying neighbours, then all so easy the problem is solved. We visited two islands to meet the locals and to look at the way they live, some of the islands had pigs, dogs, chickens, goats. There was also a chapel on one island and a cooking area in the middle of the reed floor! Who knows how the island does not catch fire, the houses are made of reed matting tied together to make walls and roofs, very simple and looks very beautiful the women of the islands are very friendly, they are very large lady's and they all wear the traditional clothing of the brightest colours, pinks, blues, lime greens and they all wear the traditional small bowler hat. We found out that the islands have a large infant death count, as there is nothing to stop the baby's from crawling around and falling in to the water and drowning, most of the island now use the tourist visits to make there money, every island has a different tour company they uses them, and every few months they change islands so that every island gets there fair share of the season. Once our tour of the islands was over, we were taken back to Puno then to our hostel to collect our bags and catch out next boat that was to take us to Taquile Island. It took us about two hours to get to Taquile, its a very small island only a few miles sq but it still has around four different villages that all run independently, each village has there own mayor and each villages clothing has slightly different designs. As we pulled in there were lots of women and girls all looking down on to the harbour watching all the tourists disembarking, we were all directed to the end of the jetty where there was a group our locals all gathered together waiting for there guests. As we arrived we were split in to small groups of 4/5 people and then introduced to our respective family's,our group was myself, Ryan and two other girls, everybody filtered off in different directions following there new family's to there new homes, as we walked to our new home we were taken along a small path through some corn fields that were the goldest gold that were swaying in the breeze with the sun setting over the mountain. From a distance we could see the house that we were heading to, it was made up of two two story buildings and two single story buildings surrounding a small courtyard, two one side was a vegetable garden, all surrounded by a dry stone wall about 3.5 / 4 ft high with a hand made branch gate that looked like it would fall apart the second you touched it, we were first taken to our rooms which were on the second floor in one of the larger buildings, the entrance was a 4ft high door the rooms were very simple two single beds with a home made bed side table between them, plain walls and wood floors the ceiling was simple blue tarpaulin hiding the corrugated roof, are first worry was that we were going to be cold in the night but we had been supplied 3 thick wool blankets each, the young boy who showed us to our rooms said