On the road to Peru

On the rocky ride to Puno in Peru the bus driver's assistant persuaded us and another couple to look at his 'excellent' hostel in Puno. He offered us free transport from the bus station so we thought we should at least take a look. Once there we soon realised this place was awful. Something akin to a horror movie. At the very least the toilet should have a seat surely! We declined, even when they reduced the room price to 4quid a night. I'd rather pay quadrouple and be in a nicer place. And a nicer place we found just round the corner.
First impressions of Puno are bad. The potholed road into town has unfinished buildings either side. In fact nearly every building in Puno has an unfinished look about. Large metal rebar poking from the top of every roof. We later discover this is a tax dodge. If you have a finished house you pay more tax, therefore no-one does and the place looks crappy because of it.
Puno is a couple of hours down the road from Copacabana in Bolivia and also beside Lake Titicaca. It's not right on the lake's edge as there's a inlet full of reeds nearer to town. It's a much bigger place than Copacabana and instantly you can tell the people are far more friendly. It's more geared up to tourists but that just means it's better for us. The saving grace of Puno is the one pedestrianised street it has and a couple of nice Plazas. There's a raft of rustic and funky looking restaurants to choose from, which at least gives us some options in the evening.
Pizzas seem to be very popular in Peru. Most places have a traditional wood burning pizza oven and they taste pretty good as a result. I had to give the local delicacy, Alpaca meat, a try. It was pretty damn fine too. Alpacas are similar to Llamas but have subtle differences. Their hair is finer and used to make blankets, scarfs, hats, jumpers and so on. Every third shop here is selling some kind of Alpaca item or multicoloured poncho.
Another food favourite is Cuy. A guy next to us at a restaurant ordered fried cuy and looked a bit set a back when it arrived. The two girls he was with seemed close to being sick. This is because Cuy is Guinea Pig. Not too bad if it comes in pieces but no. This beast is served whole, sliced down the middle and spread eagled on your plate. It took him a good hour to pick the meat off. That's one thing I think I'll avoid.
After recently celebrating Puno day the celebrations still continue a week later with the odd procession here and there. A live band also play in the square but it's absolutely freezing at night here so watching them for longer than a minute was tough.
The main attraction for tourists here is to go out by boat and visit the floating reed islands on Lake Titicaca. These are man-made islands that people live on that float around the lake. The people of the islands have to constantly replenish the reed on top as the bottom of the island disintegrates. You can even stay with a family on the island too. I didn't fancy the whole thing. We'd heard it was created mainly for the tourists and to be honest I wasn't that interested.
We do decide to stop 3 nights and do nothing but eat, drink and get on the internet. It sounds like a waste but in fact it was pretty good. To not do much for a few days is something we haven't really done on the whole trip.
Whilst sat on the square drinking a bottle of Inca Kola we were surrounded by 20 or so kids, no older than 10. They asked us loads of questions, mainly in Spanish, and just generally liked to stare at us. At one point one of them snatched my cap and every single one of them felt my hair at the same time declaring, 'Gringo!'. It was pretty funny. The people here are far more welcoming than Bolivia and it seems that they've realised how huge an industry tourism can be. It works too. I'd much rather spend my money where the people are friendly rather than a place where I don't feel welcome.
At least I feel a bit better about Peru. Time to move on to Cusco. The old Inka capital of South America. The navel of the world, as it is called. We'd heard very good things about it but we didn't want to expect too much.