Advertisement
Published: June 16th 2008
Edit Blog Post
Puno from my hotel window on the 5th floor.
I have to say that I was very careful not to forget anything in my room when I went downstairs, because it was horrific trying to climb back up! ¡Hola!
I am writing this without the benefits of my notes, so please forgive me if I have to add stuff later.
Day 8 we got up and had breakfast at the hotel (in the place that I can't remember the actual name of) including some coca tea (once you get into the highlands, coca leaves are pretty much set at the tables in the hotels like salt and pepper). We hopped back on the bus with George and Erica, and headed back through Chivay, where we dropped Erica off. We travelled for about 5 hours, through the highlands. We watched two movies, and I slept the rest of the way to Puno. I did look out the window a few times, but it was pretty much the same as before, lots of hilly, rocky, barren land. We did see a flock of flamingos at one point, I'm not sure how they survive here in the winter!
We arrived in Puno around 3:30pm, the city is nestled in a shallow valley on the shores of Lake Titicaca. The lake itself is huge, something like 60km wide and 160km long, at it's deepest point, about 232m. The border between
Peru and Bolivia runs through the lake, but it is contested, so it could be divided 60/40 for either country. The Bolivian side has a range of snow-capped mountains that are visible from the bigger islands close to Puno. More about the lake later.
The city of Puno has about 220,000 residents, and is built mostly as one and two story buildings. Brick and stone construction is pretty popular around Peru in general, and Puno is no exception. It has a few main tourist roads, which contain restaurants, internet cafes, banks, and various souvenier shops. Outside of the major cities, it's very easy to find impromptu markets where women are selling handicrafts, mainly clothing knitted with alpaca wool. So far, I've purchased a wool hat and a big gray sweater. We've been advised that the best place to buy handicrafts is in Cuzco, so I'm waiting until then. Buying in Cuzco also means I need to carry it all for a shorter time.
Anyway... We arrived in Puno, and George dropped us off in a street a few blocks from our hotel, because the streets were too narrow for the bus. We grabbed all our bags and walked down, checking in to the second hotel in a row that had little dolls for the room key chains. I had room 14, which was on the 4th (5th) floor. By the time I got to the top, I could barely breathe. Puno is at around 3830m above sea level, and you can really tell when you first arrive. To give you a sense of perspective, Mount Robson, which is the highest point in the Canadian Rockies, is only 3954m tall at it's peak.
After checking into the hotel and getting ourselves sorted in our rooms, we wandered out in small clumps to find ATMs and then food. We all ran into each other in the street, and decided to have lunch together in an Italian themed restaurant on the main street. I think we all had pizza (except Shane, who had spaghettis), which was baked in a wood fired oven in the front of the restaurant. It tasted pretty good, and was actually my first non-Peruvian meal since my arrival.
After lunch we wandered the markets for a bit (at which point I purchased my sweater), and a few of us headed to an internet cafe. Dinner was at a nice restaurant where the Lomo Saltado was highly recommended by Elard. I had that, which is basically a stir-fry with beef strips, rice, and fries. It was quite good. I also shared a bottle of wine with Jen and Fran, it was quite nice. Afterwards outside there was a bit of running around (Jen and Fran were chasing me with money, and the other way around), after about 30 seconds of running, I was completely winded, and had to rest for a few minutes to get by breath back. Good dinner though.
We headed back to our rooms (I was winded after all those stairs), and went to bed.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.049s; Tpl: 0.009s; cc: 7; qc: 45; dbt: 0.0294s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb