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Published: February 7th 2007
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Second attempt on this blog after my lovely wife accidentally erased the first one so I'll try and remember what I wrote.
We were picked up at our hostel in Cuzco early in the morning and dropped off at the bus terminal for the six hour ride to Puno. The bus wound through the alpine valleys and hills while we relaxed in an excellent luxury bus. The company is called Ormeno and the seats reclined, they offered food and drinks and there was a movie onboard. As we came out of a mountain pass we caught our first glimpse of Puno. The town is small, dirty and unappealing. Looking at the town you wonder what the attraction here is. Why do people come? The reason is that Puno sits on the banks of Lake Titicaca, the highest lake in the world and is home to the floating reed islands. We checked in to our hostel, the Don Julio, which is a nice new 5 story building and then headed off to the main plaza in search of food. Along the way we fell upon a travel agent that explained the two tours offered in Puno. The first is a half day
tour that takes you to a couple of the floating islands and back. The second is a full day that takes you to the floating islands and then a two hour journey to the island of Taquile. We signed up for the full day tour for the next morning and headed to the plaza. The main restaurant area is a three block long strip off the main plaza that offered several excellent restaurants. After dinner we started to walk back through the plaza but stopped when we noticed a crowd gathering around the square. Police had roped off the square, archways were placed at each corner and decorations were being hung. Sam asked a nearby tourist agent what was going on and we were informed that it was a practice festival for the real festival in three weeks. It seemed interesting so we stuck around for the fun to start. After about an hour, the archways were lit on fire and about eighty dancers it huge elaborate costumes danced through each of the arches into the square. Music blared, fireworks went off as ''Demons'' zip-lined down from an adjacent rooftop. Watching for an hour was amazing but we eventually tired
of constantly being squished every time dancers left or entered through the crowd.
We made our way down to the front of the hostel at 6:45 for our 7:00 am pickup which arrived at 7:30. The mini-van drove us to the docks were twenty-four of us crammed into a tiny boat for the trek to the islands. The floating islands are actually really interesting. The Uro people that inhabited the banks of Lake Titicaca were attacked by the Incas that were dominating the region. Instead of being slaughtered the Uro people boarded large rafts made from reeds that used for fishing and trade and sailed out to the middle of the bay. They lashed several rafts together and built huts on them. Later the people learned that the root system of the reeds also floated in huge patches. The root system densely packed with soil would be cut a meter thick by approximately five meters square. The large patches are then lashed together with rope and anchored to the lake floor. On top of the root patches another meter thick of reeds is put down. During the dry season the layer of reeds lasts about six months before another layer
is required. During the rainy season the layer only lasts about a month. The reeds are used for everything, from creating the island to building the huts and also as food. The number of islands constantly varies anywhere from twenty-six to forty. On special occasions several islands will be towed together to form a single larger island. The mayor said they occasionally do this for soccer matches. Also if a family is in conflict with others on an island a section would be cut off to create their own island. Walking around on the reeds was an odd feeling as they sagged and squished under your feet. It felt cold and damp there and the Mayor informed us that the people who stay on the island have joint problems. Unfortunately the two islands they took us to were more for tourists than an actual village but we did get to see how they live.
From the floating islands we took the boat to Taquile Island. Since the island is a large hill, once we landed we started the long hike. Puno sits at an elevation of about 3800 meters and climbing this hill was difficult. Halfway up the hill we
stopped at a small cottage were lunch was served and ''traditional dancers'' performed for us. Somehow I got my butt dragged out on the dancer floor to make a complete fool of myself. Apart from my performance the dancers were as cheesy as you could get. After lunch we continued to the top of the island only to find a small village full of souvenir shops. We wandered the village for about fifteen minutes before we had to hike back down to the boat. For anyone considering doing the full day tour DON'T. It is a complete waste of time and money!! The half day tour of the floating islands is well worth it but the Taquile Island is nothing but a giant souvenir shop of useless crap.
After our tour we headed back to the hostel and debated whether or not to take the overnight bus out of Puno to Arequipa. Unfortunately that decision was made for us when Sam came down with food poisoning from dinner. We holed up for the night and all morning the next day and hoped that we could leave the following day.
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