The road to Lake Titicaca...

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As it is my last week here in Peru, I had a few days off to visit Lake Titicaca. Luckily one of the other volunteers also fancied it, so we set off together.

To get from Cusco to Puno, the city on the edge of the peruvian side of the lake, it is a 7 or 8 hour bus ride. My travel companion and I decided to travel in style and to take a tourist bus which although took a few hours longer would also stop along the way to show us some sights and to break the journey up.

We set off from Cusco at about 7am and began the journey. The first stop not long after, was Andahuaylillas where we found a small village with a very quaint courtyard in front of a pretty church. The best part of the church was the amazing original fresco paintings inside. My favourites went across the doorway and depicted the struggle of one person in choosing between the paths to Heaven and to Hell. The anonymous artist managed to convey this really well, engaging you in the picture.

The next stop was Raqchi. This was a stop well worth making. The place was so peaceful and calm and really helped us to relax into our break. The site houses the ruins of an Inca temple as well as residences among other things. Surrounding the ruins there is a beautiful lake and fields where the residents of the local area still grow corn and potatoes. As a maths teacher I was also really interested in how the shapes of the bricks and the structure itself had been carefully planned to help avoid the threat of earthquakes. The building itself was built with trapezium bases and cylindrical columns which would support the structure and help to keep the structure solid even when the Earth was not.

Moving on from Raqchi we stopped in a few other small towns includin Pukara which was the base of one of the oldest groups in Peru, the Pukara lived long before the Incas and were responsible for many of the good ideas that the Inkas went on to develop and refine.

The penultimate stop was La Raya. This was a brief stop as it was very cold there and it was quite difficult to catch your breath. We were high in the snow capped mountains at an altitude of over 4300m above sea level. A stop worth making and a photo worth taking. I don't intend to be that high up again anytime soon!

The journey finally ended in Puno, a very busy and commercial town whose claim to fame is its access to the magnificent Lake Titicaca. The Lake itself is phenomenally big, looking much more like the sea than a lake. The lake is over 3,800m above sea level, making it the highest commercially navigable lake in the world. Certainly not a sight to be missed. The Lake forms a natural border between Bolivia and Peru. We stuck to the peruvian territory and spent 2 days on the lake visiting very different islands. But that is the next instalment!

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