After an ass bruising 10 hour train trek, we arrived on Saturday in Puno. Puno is a city on the shores of Lake Titicaca, the worlds highest navigable lake. What does "navigable" mean anyway? It is on scale with the great lakes in the US and sits at about 12,500 feet. We checked into what appeared to be a nice hostal. We paid $40/night - an outrageous sum here. We were kept awake by the disco down the street until about 2am, when the taxi driver fight began. They were probably arguing over who´s fare was who´s. Anyway there was much screaming and horn blowing, which doesn´t make for a restful night.

In the morning we were picked up at 8am and hopped on a boat with other tourists to vist the Isla Amantani.

There are several islands in the lake inhabited by indigenous people who rarely leave the island. We had arranged through a tour company to spend the night on Isla Amantani with a local family. We were put up in a decent room in their house on the second floor. The family consisted of a mother, father and three kids. I saw only one other bedroom and am not sure where everyone slept. The rooms on the bottom floor are all dirt floored, including the kitchen. The outhouse was a little mud brick hut with a hole in the floor. The family was very nice and the food was pretty good. They grow potatoes on the island and that is what is served with every meal. Either fried or boiled. They are too poor to eat meat. For dinner we had soup, rice, potatoes and a fried egg. For lunch, soup, fried potatoes and tuna fish.

It was a unique experience, but not the most pleasant. At least it was nice and quiet sleeping at night.

The next morning we took the boat to the neighboring island of Taquile. One this island, which reminded me of Greece, the men are constantly knitting caps. They walk around all over the island knitting. The hats are like really colorful ski stockings with a top that hangs down with a big tassle on the end. The hat color indicates whether a man is single, looking for a wife or married. If you are single the tassle hangs behind your head. If single and looking for a wife, it hangs to the side of your head. Apparently you can´t be on the prowl until you´ve saved enough money for a house. The men all wear black pants, white shirt and a wide cumber-bun like belt.

The island was a great trip as we got to hike around it on such a sunny day with spectacular views of the lake. We hike to the summit of the island which is over 4,000 meters (13,120 feet), but never has snow.

We got to know several of the tourists on the tour and met some interesting characters. Stanley lives in Alaska, teaches school all winter and runs a kayak guiding business in Martha´s Vineyard all summer. Stanley is a serious budget traveler. Dirk is a German from Frankfurt who gets 30 days vacation each year. He worked enough overtime to accumlate enough vacation to take 3 months off and get paid the entire time! There were also serveral Dutch, an Israeli, and a Spanish couple from Madrid.

Upon returning to Puno, we needed a new hostal and decided to take Dirk´s recommendation. It turned out to be a real gem - a very clean and quiet hostal for $8.50/night! We also decided to join Stanley, Dirk and others for dinner. Stanley had a placed picked out where you could get a three course meal for 75 cents, American! It was actually really good. Although it was nice to get a good room and a good meal for so cheap, it seemed to be an obsession with this group, especially Stanley. Several of them were heading to Bolivia next and although there are interesting things to do in Bolivia, it seemed that their main motivation was the fact that it is even cheaper than Peru.