The Sacred Valley and Island Hopping

Before the trek we went out for a few drinks and spoke to some ex-pats who seemed to have been sucked in by Cusco.  We didn't understand why people stayed so long there but after finishing the tour we soon realised how easy it is to stay.  We recuperated for a few days and then decided we needed to get out of Cusco otherwise we might end up staying!

We headed to Pisac in the Sacred Valley - to see more Inca ruins and also visit the famous Pisac Market.

After Pisac we headed to Ollantaytambo which involved getting on a local bus (not so comfortable as it was packed and we had our big backpacks with us) and then a taxi.  The journey was interesting because the  scenery was so beautiful but also because we experienced our first blatant example of police corruption.  Police stopped our taxi and the driver had to get out and plead with them plus pass them some money in order for us to continue (we asked the taxi driver when he got back in the car if that was normal and he said yes!).

Ollantaytambo was a really pretty little town with impressive ruins and we were lucky enough to be there for some of their independence celebrations.

After a couple of days there we headed back to Cusco and organised to do a city tour (we thought we should seeing as though we hadn't done any exploring there).

The bus journey we took to get us to Cusco initially was a nightmare so we decided to research reputable companies to get us to Puno.  We ended up doing a day tour to get us Puno - positive luxury compared with our previous experience!!

Puno isn't a very inspiring place and the only thing people go there for seems to be to get into Bolivia. We only had one day there and decided to do some island-hopping in Lake Titicaca, to the floating islands of Uros and also to Taquile.

 The experience was interesting but it was all very touristy and the islanders on Uros in particular were a little aggressive when we didn't want to buy anything from them!

Next stop Copacabana and Bolivia...