Blogs from Puno, Peru, South America - page 3

Farewell Peru: The Final Stop Lake Titicaca (29/06/2018 - 01/07/2018) Lake Titicaca, apart from having a hilarious name, is the highest navigable lake in the World. At an elevation of 3,812m, it crosses into both Peru and Bolivia. Believed to be the birthplace of the Incas, the lake is a very sacred and beautiful place. Interesingly, in Aymaran (the old local language here) the word “titi” translates as “puma”, and “caca” means “gray”. In Aymaran, Titicaca is actually pronounced as "titi-haha".. though I'm not sure if that makes it any less entertaining. Sitting on this pretty lake are 120 impressive floating islands made of reeds, home to the brightly dressed, indigenous Uros people. The Uros make these islands from dried totora reeds, woven and roped together to make a 1-2 meter thick platform to ensure it ... read more

August 28, 2017 There is a distinct advantage being on a semi organized trip to a foreign country – after arriving in Lima at 1am after about 17 hours of travelling, it was awesome to walk out of the baggage claim area and to see our names on a sign – no thinking required, just load our bags into a van (the trunk was subsequently locked so it could not be burgled when we were stopped) and relax during the 40 minute drive to the Dazzler Lima Hotel in Miraflores, a rather upscale district of Lima Province that is tourist central. A few hours sleep and then downstairs for an awesome breakfast buffet – So much fresh fruit and juice, along with hot food (eggs, sausages), a lot of pastries and some just plain weird food ... read more

David here... The bus journey from Arequipa was around 6.5 hours and was comfortable enough. We got a light lunch of a chicken sandwich and a cake on the bus plus a drink of tea. It was mid-afternoon when we arrived at Puno, our final destination in Peru. On the shores of Lake Titicaca, it seemed such an evocative place. We'd booked 4 nights, thinking we would find some great hikes, views and space. Our first impressions of Puno were not great as we passed through on the coach. It looked dusty, drab and like any typical border town. The 15 minute walk to the hotel did nothing to dispel our fears. What had we done? 4 nights here when we might have been better using a couple in the Sacred Valley or Colca regions. We ... read more

After the sand dunes in Huacachina we jumped back on one of our friendly buses and headed southeast, working our way into more central southern Peru. We spent many hours going through spectacular country side. Looking out the window we saw endless plains, giant mountains, pristine looking rivers, flocks of sheep and alpaca, terraced land, ancient handmade rock fences, spectacular sky, lightning shows, simple mud houses, and most locals wearing the traditional colourful Peruvian clothes. All of these more than made up for the fact that our long bus ride almost doubled in length thanks to a labour strike of some sort; a long delay due to a road closure to accommodate a popular car race of some kind; and an eerie bus transfer done at a dark lonely deserted gas station overrun with somewhat wild ... read more

Arriving in Puno after a long road journey across the altiplano we have our first glimpse of Lake Titicaca - what an evocative sight it was! Even better, when we check into our hotel room we found we had a wonderful panorama across the lake including the Uros Reed islands!! We were somewhat apprehensive as we would be spending two nights and a full day at the continuous highest altitude of the tour, 12500ft, but we had acclimatised well in the previous few days and apart from being slightly short of breath when climbing stairs or walking uphill we were absolutely fine with no significant altitude sickness symptoms. The following morning we watched a dramatic sunrise, from the comfort of our room, which was a bonus as the outside temperature was below zero!! Later we boarded ... read more