We arrived at 15:30 and by 16:00 I had a room, so I've quickly checked out the city. Then I had dinner at a cheap Chinese place, which was hilarious because their Spanish was very limited and nearly unintelligable. After much gesticulating with two waitresses I thought they were saying "solo veldulas" and sure enough I finally got soup and noodles with only vegetables (verduras).

I haven't really prepared much for this trip so on the bus I read my Lonely Planet about Titicaca and decided on a completely different route. I have to scratch things from my list to get back to Lima in time, and the first victim is my night on the island Taquila in lake Titicaca, as it apparently takes 2x5h to go there and back, leaving just a few hours to explore the island. That doesn't seem too appealing so instead I'll just take a boat to the amazing Islas Flotandas (floating islands) of the Uros people, which was my main interest here anyway, and use the afternoon to visit the funerary towers at Sillustani. In the evening I'll head to the border with Bolivia already and hopefully find somewhere to stay.

The second and third victims are Copacabana and Isla del Sol on the Bolivian side of the lake, though I may still do those on the way back. Instead I'll head straight to La Paz, and since I should already cover half the distance tomorrow evening, I should have enough time the day after to let the bus to La Paz drop me off halfway, make my way to the nearby 1000 year old ruins of Tiahuacan (a World Heritage Site made by a mysterious lost civilisation), visit those and then still try to get to La Paz the same day. A shaky plan, which makes it double fun if it all works out :)

Btw just like Nepal Peru is full of Flemings, there were 6 on the bus (7 counting me) and I already encountered others in Puno, as I did elsewhere. Also the museums here all explain how the initial influence of Peru's main art movement ("la escuela Cuzqueña") was la Pentura Flamenca, so I'm feeling like quite the superpower here. The showpiece of the San Francisco monastery in Lima (the one with the skulls and bones) is a collection of 12 paintings by Rubens, Van Dijck and Jordaens showing the 12 stages of the crucifixion, and the central altar piece of the Cuzco cathedral is also a Van Dijck.