Puno, Peru - Lake Titicaca and the Floating Islands
So after leaving Cusco thoroughly exhausted, we hopped on a "tourist bus" to Puno. It would have been a lot cheaper to take a local bus, but we thought this sounded like fun, it had a buffet lunch included, and the bus was super comfy. And for a 10 hour trip, these things were essential.
We left at 7 am and stopped off at a little church right outside of Cusco. Alex and I could have cared less where we were, BECAUSE IT WAS FREEZING. We had some warm clothes...like a long sleeve shirt and a rain jacket, but we were in desperate need of layers. There were some women outside of the church selling Alpaca products, and we would have paid anything for a couple of sweaters and some gloves. But luckily it was actually the cheapest we had found the alpaca sweaters so far. We paid 36 bucks for two SUPER WARM sweaters, 2 pairs of gloves, and 2 hats. And while I'm pretty sure the sweaters were authentic, the gloves sucked, and the hats were only okay, but we were still happy not to be freezing our asses off. Here's the ass-cold church:
Very pretty but unappreciated considering our frozen brains. Next we stopped by some (more) ruins:
And by this time it was super hot again, so we took off all the stuff we have bought an hour previous. After a couple more hours of driving, we went to the best buffet lunch ever:
While we were sitting eating lunch, Alex was looking out the window and started talking to himself. He said, "Oh man he's going to do it. Don't do it. OH MAN HE DID IT!" Instead of attributing it to his usual crazy self, I decided to take a leap and ask him what he was looking at. He quickly pointed to a guy outside of the window who was looking at a bush. He leaned over, picked off some of the flowers, sniffed them, and THEN ATE THEM. It was awesome. He watched him walk around sniffing things and eating them, and at some point I snapped a picture of him:
Luckily, he was on our bus, and sitting right next to us. He was the most interesting man we had ever seen. He kept a notebook with him, where he sketched everything we had seen that day and wrote notes about it. Alex thinks he's Darwin, come back to make more observations about this world we live in. Whoever he was, we were grossly disappointed that he didn't speak English, and we would never hear his story.
During the trip we also went to one of the highest driving points in Southern Peru. You know you're there when you wake up from your nap because you weren't getting enough oxygen in your sleep. It was at 4,335 km (13,123 ft):
Later that night when we got to Puno, we had dinner at a pizzeria (we were craving it too much, don't judge us), where you could get a "Creep with Ice Cream". I think they meant Crepe, but we thought it was the best translation error yet. We explained what is was to our waiter, in what we thought was a very polite and joking matter, but he seemed to get really offended and was terrible the rest of the night. Whoops:
The next day we did the typical touristy things around Puno: See Lake Titicaca, and visit the Uros Floating Islands and Isla Tequile. We booked a tour through our hostel because we were too tired to try to get one at the docks in the morning. Basically all of the islands are made entirely out of reeds, meaning that they are not really islands, but floating vegetation that these people created. They used to not anchor them to the ground, so they could float aimlessly with the currents at any time they wanted to.
The way the tours work is that each boat goes to one of the 80 some-odd islands created by these reeds. Each island has a couple of families on it, where they explain to you how they live and their traditions, etc. After the demonstration on how the islands are made, they sing to you, pull you into their homes, and dress you up:
I know were smiling, but we were super uncomfortable. I hate these really touristy things, and you feel obligated to give them money after they've been so nice to you. They absolutely refuse to listen if you say you don't want to be put into their clothes or take pictures. Alex then wanted to take a ride on their boat for 20 soles (only 7 dollars USD, but expensive in Peruvian terms). I didn't want to pay the money, but he insisted, and we were pushed away from the islands for a couple of minutes, and then had to leap from that boat onto our original one that was speeding away:
So far I wasn't liking the day, but now we had a 3 hour trip (ughhhhh) to Isla Tequile, which is supposed to have some good viewpoints of the lake. Here's one:
A cute board in the square telling you how many miles away cities are. The closest thing to us was Mexico City. Not a whole lot of them were in the U.S.:
All in all, I hated Puno, and all the tourist attractions that we had done. I should have listened to the advice of other travelers and gone to the other side of Lake Titicaca to Copacabana, Bolivia, where it's way nice, way cheaper, and not such a tourist trap. I was rewarded with a wicked sun burn, food poising, and the most boring day of our trip. But luckily we only spent the one day here, and made our way to Arequipa!
We left at 7 am and stopped off at a little church right outside of Cusco. Alex and I could have cared less where we were, BECAUSE IT WAS FREEZING. We had some warm clothes...like a long sleeve shirt and a rain jacket, but we were in desperate need of layers. There were some women outside of the church selling Alpaca products, and we would have paid anything for a couple of sweaters and some gloves. But luckily it was actually the cheapest we had found the alpaca sweaters so far. We paid 36 bucks for two SUPER WARM sweaters, 2 pairs of gloves, and 2 hats. And while I'm pretty sure the sweaters were authentic, the gloves sucked, and the hats were only okay, but we were still happy not to be freezing our asses off. Here's the ass-cold church:
Very pretty but unappreciated considering our frozen brains. Next we stopped by some (more) ruins:
And by this time it was super hot again, so we took off all the stuff we have bought an hour previous. After a couple more hours of driving, we went to the best buffet lunch ever:
While we were sitting eating lunch, Alex was looking out the window and started talking to himself. He said, "Oh man he's going to do it. Don't do it. OH MAN HE DID IT!" Instead of attributing it to his usual crazy self, I decided to take a leap and ask him what he was looking at. He quickly pointed to a guy outside of the window who was looking at a bush. He leaned over, picked off some of the flowers, sniffed them, and THEN ATE THEM. It was awesome. He watched him walk around sniffing things and eating them, and at some point I snapped a picture of him:
Luckily, he was on our bus, and sitting right next to us. He was the most interesting man we had ever seen. He kept a notebook with him, where he sketched everything we had seen that day and wrote notes about it. Alex thinks he's Darwin, come back to make more observations about this world we live in. Whoever he was, we were grossly disappointed that he didn't speak English, and we would never hear his story.
During the trip we also went to one of the highest driving points in Southern Peru. You know you're there when you wake up from your nap because you weren't getting enough oxygen in your sleep. It was at 4,335 km (13,123 ft):
We went to a museum where they had Vicuna!! They are the most adorable relations to the Alpaca, and have the softest wool in the world. A sweater from one of these babies cost around $400 USD. Yikes:
Later that night when we got to Puno, we had dinner at a pizzeria (we were craving it too much, don't judge us), where you could get a "Creep with Ice Cream". I think they meant Crepe, but we thought it was the best translation error yet. We explained what is was to our waiter, in what we thought was a very polite and joking matter, but he seemed to get really offended and was terrible the rest of the night. Whoops:
The next day we did the typical touristy things around Puno: See Lake Titicaca, and visit the Uros Floating Islands and Isla Tequile. We booked a tour through our hostel because we were too tired to try to get one at the docks in the morning. Basically all of the islands are made entirely out of reeds, meaning that they are not really islands, but floating vegetation that these people created. They used to not anchor them to the ground, so they could float aimlessly with the currents at any time they wanted to.
The way the tours work is that each boat goes to one of the 80 some-odd islands created by these reeds. Each island has a couple of families on it, where they explain to you how they live and their traditions, etc. After the demonstration on how the islands are made, they sing to you, pull you into their homes, and dress you up:
I know were smiling, but we were super uncomfortable. I hate these really touristy things, and you feel obligated to give them money after they've been so nice to you. They absolutely refuse to listen if you say you don't want to be put into their clothes or take pictures. Alex then wanted to take a ride on their boat for 20 soles (only 7 dollars USD, but expensive in Peruvian terms). I didn't want to pay the money, but he insisted, and we were pushed away from the islands for a couple of minutes, and then had to leap from that boat onto our original one that was speeding away:
So far I wasn't liking the day, but now we had a 3 hour trip (ughhhhh) to Isla Tequile, which is supposed to have some good viewpoints of the lake. Here's one:
A cute board in the square telling you how many miles away cities are. The closest thing to us was Mexico City. Not a whole lot of them were in the U.S.:
The bustling city center. Don't get too excited now:
We knew that lunch wasn't included, but instead of letting us go find somewhere to eat, each tour company is setup at one restaurant, so that all the local businesses get tourists equally. The worst part is is that you have two choices, fish or an omelet, and it was one set price at 20 soles. Oh yeah, and I got terrible food poisoning from the fish the next day:
And one more interesting English translations on the road:
All in all, I hated Puno, and all the tourist attractions that we had done. I should have listened to the advice of other travelers and gone to the other side of Lake Titicaca to Copacabana, Bolivia, where it's way nice, way cheaper, and not such a tourist trap. I was rewarded with a wicked sun burn, food poising, and the most boring day of our trip. But luckily we only spent the one day here, and made our way to Arequipa!
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