Puno, Lake Titicaca

Puno

We enjoyed staying at the hotel again.

Yes I know, we had a few hotels in the last days, but we had already booked this one in La Paz a long time ago. However, we will mostly stay in hotels for the next 2 ½ weeks. In Lima, we will stay in an Airbnb apartment again. On the first morning, we are already going on the first tour. We are going to visit the famous floating islands on Lake Titicaca and also another island. Yes, another boat trip, but I was quite confident about these floating islands. We had a larger boat before with more comfort. We started and I was a little scared because it was a speedboat.

When we left the harbor at a very slow speed, Andrea and Reto explained to us that this was the maximum speed of the other boat. He then pressed the throttle and finally we had a proper speed, that was fine.

Then we sailed through the reeds that covered 80% of the harbor. We saw various animals in the reeds, like pigs, birds and dogs. We slowly approached the floating islands of the Uros Indians. They are half villages built on these self-made floating islands. There are large islands with schools, doctor's houses, etc., and then there are also small family islands with mostly 4-5 huts.

Then we landed on one of the islands and went ashore. There were 5 huts. At the time, there were only 4 women on the island, so to speak, the "mayor" or the "chief" of this island. The little children were in primary school (on another island) while the older ones were in secondary school in Puno on the mainland. However, they only go home on weekends. We all sat in a circle and they explained very interestingly how they live on this island, how they built it, etc.

What is also practical is that if you have a disagreement with your neighbor, you can call a motorboat (a tugboat) and it will simply push you to a new place, how convenient. It's strange how the whole island moves because of the waves or when someone walks around. It takes some getting used to but it's cool in a way.

After the visit, we got on one of their traditional self-made boats. So yes, they said "whoever wants can come with us and we will take you to the next island for 10 Soles (3 Francs)"! We thought "let's see"! When we were about to go, our guide called us and said "We're going to the next island"! And he left with the larger boat. So we had no choice, haha.

However, it was fun. The "mayor" was at one oar and a woman at the other. However, she wasn't as good. I asked her if I should help, she naturally said no. So I sat down and chatted with the captain. He had to tell me 2-3 times to row a little slower, I had too much power.

Then we made another stop where we had coffee and a snack. After that, we went to the actual island of Taquile. We took a walk and walked about 4 km across the island and made various stops. There were beautiful paths and lots of flowers, etc.

Well, we won't say too much about it, but it was really beautiful on this island. We saw the famous knitting men. The men knit and the women spin. Not a bad idea, no kidding. After that, we went to have lunch with a family. They had trout from the lake, and it was really delicious.

Then we slowly returned to the mainland. We walked around Puno and visited the city. We were quite tired in the evening. We had something to eat, played cards and then went to bed. In the morning, we continued. We went to the bus station at 7:00, but it looked a little different than what we are used to.

We had a 9-hour bus ride to Cusco, but with 5 stops, which we really liked because the bus ride wasn't so boring.

We visited the most beautiful church we have seen so far in South America, with a lot of gold. We also visited an old Inca village where the foundation stones are still standing, but unfortunately it was raining and we had to move on quickly. At the highest point of the bus ride at 4300 m above sea level, we stopped at a beautiful viewpoint, visited a museum, and then we also had lunch with live music, typical Peruvian.

 In the evening, we finally arrived in Cusco. More about Cusco in the next blog.

See you soon,

Ernesto and Muriel

Next stop: Cusco