Moving yet higher, for a dip in Lake Titicaca

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Hard to believe, but our trip out of Cusco to Puno, which is situated on the shores of Lake Titicaca, was to actually take us to a higher altitude, with the lake at around 3,800m the highest navigatible lake in the world (any dispute this time, you statisticians?).

Our trip down was on a very comfortable bus called the Inca Express, and while the total journey took around 9 hours, it did include 4 scenic stops and 1 for a buffet lunch. The stops included ruins and markets at Raqchi, photos of which were shown in the Cusco blog; a great old 17th century church at Andahuaylillas, for which the ceiling is known as the ´Andean Sistine Chapel´ (they have used a bit of licence, but it makes a good story!); and the lookout at La Naya, the highest point on the trip at 4,300m. Every time you stop in Peru, you can be guaranteed to be surrounded by at least a dozen women and kids selling all the standard merchandise. The latter part of the trip was through the very barren altiplano, which sounds boring, but in fact was quite fascinating to see the scattered housing and the various farming pursuits of the locals, not to mention the alpacas and llamas.

Puno in itself is not a very exciting city and is nothing more than a gateway to Lake Titicaca. While it contains the traditional central plaza, it only has one street (and about 3 blocks at that) of restaurants and travel shops, then you get into a much lower level of living standard. We had two ventures onto the Lake - the first was an organised tour of the floating islands of the Uros people, follwed by a visit to an island called Taquile, much further away; the second was actually our commute from Puno to La Paz, which comprised first a bus trip down the lake, then a luxury catamaran trip across the lake and into Bolivia, then a further bus trip from the other side down to La Paz. This latter packake also comprised a half day visit to the Island of the Sun, where we in fact had an overnight stay in the catamaran.

The trip out to the floating islands of the Uros people was for me one of the highlights of our trip. I had heard of them, but had not realised that there are in fact about 40 such islands, each of which house from 3 up to 6 families. Furthermore, I had somehow visualised that they weaved the reeds like mats and lay one mat on top of the other, but in fact the islands are just a mass of reed roots (in plentiful supply in the shallows of the lake) all tied together, with masses and masses of reeds thrown on top in criss cross fashion. Needless to say, it resulted in a very spongy surface, but it seems to be stable enough to build huts and other dwellings, as they have been there for years. Hopefully the pics give a better understanding than my paltry decription, but it was not as commercialised and touristy as I had been led to believe.

We then went o further couple of hours sail to Taquile, which houses aroyund 4,000 people of the Aymara tribe, who lead a pretty isolated lifestyle and almost appear to live with their own ´rules´. Initially we had a climb of some 500 m to get to the top of island which, while giving us a great view, was pretty tiring given the altitude. Amongst some of the interesting customs there are that the men and women seem to share most chores, so we saw men knitting clothes, and women helping to build stone walkways around the island. The way these people wear their clothing has special significance, with men wearing tightly woven woollen hats that resemble nightcaps, but worn in different positions to reflect different personal situations and social status, and similarly women wear different clothing to signify if married, if single and looking, or single and not looking etc. They even have different clothes to signify if they are happy with life, or that life currently sucks. Maybe there are lessons to be learnt from these people!

The two day/one night catamaran & bus trip across the lake was a turnaround from the norm in that after seeing very few Aussies on the road, we got linked in with a tour group comprising 12 Aussies and 8 Danes. With most of the day tours we have done to date, we have been the oldest, while on this cruise we were in fact the youngest! So if any of you are thinking of doing this trip, you had better be prepared for a slow pace. But it was good to have the company and a change from just talking to each other. The tour took in a half day at the Isla del Sol, but compared with Taquile the day before, it was pretty leisurely and not a great deal to report. However, the overnight stay in the catamaran, and the social activities stemming from this was a pleasant change from our independent travel.

I stated in my Lima blog that we had deviated from our original travel plan and used a tour group to basically book all our Peru land travel (buses, trains and catamaran), city tours, hotel transfers and accommodation for the whole 3 weeks, all in one package that seemed significantly cheaper than the individual costs of these items, not to mention that it saved us a whole bunch of leg work. Well, I am pleased to say that all arrangements went like clockwork and we could not fault the efforts of each of the agencies they used in Arequipa, Cusco and Puno. So if anyone wants to stay independent but have the hard admin work done for them, I would recommend the services of Julius Tours, who are based in Calle Bolivar in Miraflores (suburb of Lima) and the principal is Julio.

So from here, it is over Lake Titicaca to La Paz, before we fly south to Buenos Aires and the Iguazu Falls.

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Photos

Queue at a Bank in Puno
I don´t want to ever hear you complain again about the queue at your bank!