Advertisement
Published: June 26th 2010
Edit Blog Post
Following our lazy stroll in the Bolivian section of lake Titicaca, we decided to move across yet another border into Peru. This was a nice short 5 hour bus ride during daylight hours, so we got to take in the scenery. Unfortunately for us this was not really any different at all to the scenery in Bolivia, with the towns being ugly and dirty, with very little colour or completed buildings… The ladies in their traditional dress however were wearing slightly larger hats.
When we arrived in Puno, we were immediately glad that we had stayed in Copacabana for a few days. The town is very drab, with small streets and what feels like dirt everywhere. This was exacerbated by the number of people that actually live in the town. We spent half our time walking on the road because the footpaths were so full… Puno wasn’t all bad though, the hostel we stayed in was quite nice, had cable and was cheap as chips so we decided to have a recovery day of watching the telly, sleeping, and taking short walks around town when we needed to buy food and water. 24 hours well spent!
Following our rest
day we no longer had time to head out to the big islands for an overnight trip but we still had plenty of time to head out to Uros, the floating reed islands. The people living on these islands have been living on Titicaca for more than 500 years as, back in the day, they were quite peaceful and didn’t have the strength to stand up to the Incans or the empire that preceded them. As a result they took their boats (made out of reeds too…) out with one family and one house per boat. It was only about 100-200 years ago that they worked out how to use the reeds and their roots to make large islands that can hold 4 or 5 familys. The people living on the islands constantly put new layers of reeds on the top of the islands and as a result the surface is very squidgy (the technical term) and quite comfortable onthe feet. These days, the islands are all anchored together just off Puno with schools and churches and shops, and they are THE tourist trap from hell. The ladies still all dress traditionally and they live in reed and wooden houses
with outdoor kitchens, but they way they make their money is through tourist mugs like ourselves. And we obliged in keeping them fed and watered by purchasing a nice hand made rug/mat/hangy thing…. All in all very interesting!
After the trip to the islands we headed up to the local Mercado to purchase food for the night. Following Catherines pocket being picked in La Paz, we had stopped carrying the camera around when we were just strolling, so we left it in the hostel. As a result of this, we saw a really cool religious ceremony just outside the markets… (It was the start of the festival of the Corpus Christi, which is really big in Peru. It features the locals making religious shrines and statues and parading them around). We caught this parade at the very start. About 30-40 locals were around the alter with half of them in colourful balaclavas dancing and singing to the bands, both traditional flutes and pan pipes, and a brass band. As usual in this part of the world, this was accompanied by large amounts of fire crackers..
Our plan had to be to stay in Puno for a few days
longer oiginally however we were getting a bit over dirty cities at high altitude so we jumped a bus to Cusco the next day to catch up with Nicole who was already there learning some Espanol.
This was another interesting bus ride with a nice early start and a half full bus. I thought we were in and would be able to spread out. This was short lived though as the bus seemed to stop at random points on the side of the road and new people purchased their ticket, grabbed their box of chickens and their massive bags and climbed on board. This wasn’t even a local bus - it was a proper inter city coach… Peru is a very interesting place! On this ride we got a good feel for how much pride Peruvians take in their country - Driving down the main street of a town about half way between the two cities, one of the local guys sitting near us got all his rubbish together into a plastic bag, opened the window and dropped it right there. We couldn’t believe it. And they wonder why pollution is so bad and all their water is full
of crap…
This all sounds pretty negative, but we are both amazed by the place and just can’t help comparing it to Australia and the UK… Very, very different!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.052s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 14; qc: 31; dbt: 0.0236s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb