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Published: June 17th 2008
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Puno, Lake Titicaca Day 38 Having left Copacabana and Bolivia that afternoon we arrived in Puno a far less threatening place in my opinion than La Paz had been and for that I was grateful. What I was not grateful for was the freezing cold weather that we were again having to endure.
After a brief bus journey to the Bolivian border we had our passports stamped by Bolivian immigrations and walked the 200m across the border into Peru where our next bus awaited. The 3 hour journey to Puno was very picturesque as we meander alongside Lake Titicaca.
Uros and Taquile Island - Day 39 Today we visited "Apu Kontiki", one of many inhabited floating Uros islands on Lake Titicaca. This one, like many others, was set aside for tourists to visit. Upon arriving on the island the first thing you notice is the stench of rotting reeds, which you would have to expect due to the number of layers of reeds needed (2 and a half meters deep) and the number of years these reeds have been in place for. Walking on top of them without sinking through to the water does
Birds eye view
From atop the watch tower take some used to getting your head around, but when you have managed this you can enjoy the experience of them softly collapsing beneath your feet to give a sponge like impression. Rosie our indigenous island guide and her friend joyfully showed us how they create a floating island, fully equipped with watch tower, fish farm and bird ponds and then handed us a piece of the island in the form of a fresh reed to peel and eat. I tried this and it looked and tasted like a water chestnut.
One of the other female inhabitants then insisted all 30 of us in the group squeeze into their home-made reed boat adorned with a dragons head to row us across to see their floating school. As we departed the ladies of the island stood at the edge and sang goodbye songs to us in three languages (the 2 indigenous languages and castelano (spanish)). On arrival at the next small floating island we were greeted by several children who had speedily rowed their little boats back in to show off their fishermans catches.
We then set off for Taquile Island which in all honestly was rather disappointing when
you weigh up the time it took to get there (1 hour), the steep walk up the hill at altitude to reach their town square (55minutes) and the sights we were greeted with, more knitted goods. It was a pretty island, lunch was....ok, but not unique or stunning, i.e. the highlight was the musician. Unusually we were treated to the sight of watching the men do the knitting before having to tread carefully down over 350 steep steps to the lake side.
The Inka Express - Day 40 Rather than take an expensive train as recomended by most guide books we had found the Inka Express bus route that would take us through to Cusco whilst stopping enroute at some worthy Inca sites that the train will simply bypass, plus it was cheaper.
The journey would took around 9 hours with stops so we had an early start. The first stopping point was to Pukara and its small museum, home to some Inca carvings such as ´The Decapitator´ and other creepy mythological icons. A bizarre place that would only allow 1 photo per person to prevent decomposition of the stone carvings of artefacts kept
outside with no shelter from bad weather.
Our second stop took us to the highest point in our journey through Peru, La Raya at 4,335mts. The scenary here was impressive, as we stood at 4335mts looking up further still at the enormous mountain range spread out in front of us. Yet still this high up and far into the wildernous the locals manage to drag their knitted wares up to make shift stalls to sell to us travellers the llama emblazoned bobble hats and alpaca jumpers.
We stopped in Sicuani for our lunch before heading on to Raqchi where we came across our first trully impressive Inca Temple. Raqchi is thought to be the largest Inca Temple ever built and is surrounded by the crumbling remains of store houses and residences, covering a large site. It also sits on the Inca trail with up to 40,000km of pathways which can still be seen although hundreds of years old as fading white slashes etched into the mountainsides. (Or less of a distance depending on which books you read or which guides you listen to).
The last place of interest was to the acclaimed Sistine Chapel of South America
in Andahuaylillas. It was, in truth, no competition and only slightly comparative in a kooky kind of way, however you could understand why this Church was noted in such a way due to the unusual paint work (for a church) patterned across the ceiling and the huge works of art surrounded by a typically tacky gold frame work.
A long winding mountain pass later we eventually rolled into Cusco, weary but far more enlightened.
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