  We have measured the resistance and the 1/f resistance noise of a
two-dimensional low density hole system in a high mobility GaAs quantum well at
low temperature. At densities lower than the metal-insulator transition one,
the temperature dependence of the resistance is either power-like or simply
activated. The noise decreases when the temperature or the density increase.
These results contradict the standard description of independent particles in
the strong localization regime. On the contrary, they agree with the
percolation picture suggested by higher density results. The physical nature of
the system could be a mixture of a conducting and an insulating phase. We
compare our results with those of composite thin films.
