At last I decided to do a tourist thing...
a visit to the Urcos floating islands is a minimum when you are in Puno . 

So I took a walk to the Puerto Lacustre, not immediately finding my way, and seeing two young students looking a little puzzled too. We talked, asked our way, and found where to buy a ticket for a boat ride to the Urcos islands. 

Maria and Michele from Buenos Aires, Argentinia, would be my travel buddies for that day!

The boat was very 'basic", and I admired the skill of the "engine specialist" who often put his hands on the motor to keep it steady running. hum. will we arrive?

We arrived at one of the many floating islands, here, five families lived together. 

 The same man gave us a very interesting presentation, explaining how they made the thing float, and said, "when a family really makes problems and annoys everybody, we just cut them off and they float away from us ;-) We then could walk around, admire the houses and everything really built with reeds . When you walk the soil of reeds is quite spongy. strange! 

Since about a thousand years, these people build their islands with reeds, and continuously have to rebuild, because the reeds rot with time... but that is how they live! In the ancient times, it was to escape the Inca and later the Spanish.

 After looking around they brought us with one of their special boats in reeds to a bigger island, where there was a restaurant: I finally ate a Ceviche, typical dish here made of raw fish. So best be careful, but here for sure, the fish was fresh, it was caught in front of my eyes!

Coming back, Michele and Maria had a little lunch and I just took some coffee, we talked about traveling and life, and then they went their way and I went mine... but we have exchanged our Facebook addresses ;-)