Puno, Lake Titicaca and Arequipa- to infinity and beyond.

We caught an 8 a.m. bus out of Cusco and headed south to Puno, on the banks of Lake Titicaca. The drive was gorgeous with a stopoff at a high mountain pass to look at tables of handicrafts and baby llamas.
Our double decker bus was comfortable and air conditioned and we watched pirated copies of "The Godfather" and "Up." Something happened to the Godfather DVD and it quit about 2/3 of the way through. No one seemed to mind.Here's the faded sign at the side of the road saying 4,338 meters above sea level (14,232 feet).
And the obligatory market stop. I'm glad we didn't take the night bus, it was a gorgeous ride.The next day we took a tour of Lake Titicaca. The city of Puno is quite unremarkable so if you aren't interested in seeing the lake or some of the ruins in the area, I say skip it. We went on a 9 hour tour that started with some floating islands and ended at Taquile Island which offers stunning views and supposedly a look at isolated island people. Aside from the fact that they see 1,000 tourists a day they are wonderfully isolated. The floating islands were cool and made entirely of reeds. Angela and I went for a ride in a reed boat like the one above. I'm quite certain there were jetskis and other high power water craft hidden in the reeds but I was unable to spot them.
Here's the view from the lunch table on Taquile Island. It was a gorgeous spot overlooking Lake Titicaca but package tours are so lame it was hard to get past the herding and the prodding which I detest. "Titi" means puma and "caca" should actually be pronounced more like haha (means grey or stone colored) but the Spanish screwed it up so the sacred lake of the grey Puma does not come across so sacred anymore. If you look at the shape of the lake and turn it upside down it supposedly resembles a puma chasing a rabbit. Once again you may need to hit the coca tea before this becomes evident.The islanders are all about these stone arch ways and there are several of them as we walked from one side to the other. This little girl was gawking at all the white people, but she looked great in her traditional dress so I took this shot. It was nice and hot after lunch so I went down to the docks and jumped in the lake with two other tourists. Everyone looked shocked (the water was about 48F) but it felt great and I was surprised more people weren't doing it. I talked to the two other guys who jumped in and it turned out they were both from Fairbanks as well. Small world.
The ride back to Puno from Taquile Island took almost 3 hours but was hot and sunny the whole way. We chatted with some other travelers from Scotland, Germany and Australia and had a great time.
Today we caught an 11 a.m. bus to Arequipa, the second largest city in Peru. Once again we drove through a high mountain pass but this time it was pouring rain, fog and snow so we couldn't see anything. The movie on the bus was Castaway dubbed in Spanish. Who decides what we will watch is beyond me. Now we're tucked into a nice hotel on the edge of the main plaza and will set about exploring the city tomorrow. We are surrounded by 3 volcanoes and a few hours away is a canyon deeper than the Grand Canyon. Probably won't check it out though as it's the rainy season and rain and canyons just don't mix.

Random travel tip of the day: Peruvian faucets do not have aerators (the little thing at the end that gives you a nice bubbling stream of water when you turn on the tap). So when you turn on the water a high pressure stream comes out, hits the sink and sprays all over your crotch effectively making it look like you have tragically embarrassing incontinence. You will do this at least 3 times before you learn to turn the faucet on slowly.