Puno and Lake Titicaca

"However far your travels take you, you will never find the girl who smiles out at you from the travel brochure."
~Source Unknown

Saturday, November 1st to Monday, November 3rd 2008

November 1st was my last day in Cuzco. I was there for over a month and enjoyed every day but it was time to say my goodbyes and continue to other places. Same as in Huaraz I said my goodbye by taking a short horse back trip to the surrounding area. The trip was only 2 and a half hours long but it included nice views of the city from above and a visit to some archaeological ruins close by, on top of one I sat down and ate pineapple that was picked in the Manu jungle. After the ride I descended down on foot from the white statue of Jesus overlooking the city to the central Plaza. The next station on my trip was Puno the city on the shore of the world's highest lake navigable to large vessels, located at 3810m above sea level in the Andes Mountains. I packed my bags, said goodbye to Tanya from the "Andes Path" agency who did a great job booking almost all of the Cuzco activities for me and boarded the night bus. The bus ride took 10 hours and I didn´t sleep well so when I arrived to Puno in 5am in the morning I was dead tired. Luckily I already booked the islands tour through Tanya in Cuzco so her local counterpart Edward was waiting for me in the desolate cold bus terminal. Edward took me and my companions to a local hotel where he explained about the next two days. I wanted to continue to La Paz, Bolivia right after the tour, but this was not possible due to the closing hours of the border checkpoint so I booked 1 night at the hotel and transportation to La Paz on the next day. After all the business was done, I sat down to eat breakfast and waited for my ride to the port.

The small van picked up my companions and myself a little later than planned and we headed to Puno´s small harbor. We boarded the motorboat and immediately got a taste of things to come as 2 musicians climbed with us, played for 2 minutes and asked for money in return. The boat than started the 40 minutes journey to the floating islands of Uros. Titicaca is notable for a population of people who live on the Uros, a group of 42 or so artificial islands made of floating reeds. These islands have become a major tourist attraction for Peru but unfortunately it feels that way. The islands themselves are interesting and the facts on how and why they were build fascinating, but the general feeling is that the place has become too touristic and that the whole thing is there for the "show". A little disappointed I boarded the boat for the next destination, the island of Amantaní who is another small island on Lake Titicaca populated by about 800 families. There are two mountain peaks on the island, called Pachatata (Father Earth) and Pachamama (Mother Earth), and ancient ruins on the top of both peaks. There are no cars on the island, and no hotels and I was supposed to stay at a local family as a guest and see from up close the life in this part of the earth. Unfortunately, the family house, although nice, looked more like a hostel. I got to eat the local food but instead of doing it with the local family, I ate alone with the Anna from Denmark who shared the family house with me - in the end I learned more about Denmark than Titicaca... After lunch I went up to see the sunset from the Pachatata temple which I circled 3 times for good luck. There was supposed to be a nightly traditional dance show for the tourists where I was supposed to dress up in traditional clothes, but it started to rain and I was really tired so me and Anna went to sleep early instead. In the next morning, before saying goodbye, I was dressed up in the traditional poncho and hat - but the only camera around was an analog camera with only one picture who belong to a crazy Danish girl - so no pictures from that event, sorry..

The last stop was in Taquile island where I walked around the island, stopped at the local high quality textile shop the island is famous for and had a fish for lunch while listening to our guide explaining about local clothes and traditions. The boat took me back to Puno at around 15:00 and although the lake itself was beautiful and history and customs fascinating - I felt that over tourism "killed" the original authentic feeling this place might had in the past. In contrast, by luck I found myself in Puno while the city celebrated it´s birthday in a very colorful carnival of dances and customs who went by my hotel window for hours and later in the crowded streets as I went to the plaza to grab something to eat. Although they were dancing in the streets from early in the morning and some of the dancers looked tired - it was amazing to see the number of participants who danced by the the plaza in what seems like an endless colorful stream. The pictures does not do justice with this event and in my humble opinion it was much more authentic and interesting then the islands that got me here in the first place. Sometimes you need luck when you travel...