Tour of Peru - Day 6 Puno

Pictures at the bottom of this post.


After leaving Colca Canyon, we arrived in Puno after dark Tuesday night. Puno is high. It is at 12,500 ft and I think we all felt the effects--thirsty, slight headache. On the way we used Lonely Planet Guide to find a hotel. Sandra at Don Julio Hotel was awesome. She came to the plaza to help us navigate the last few blocks to the hotel. The place was newly renovated and was the nicest room we stayed in during the whole trip, which isn't saying much.

We ate a late dinner at Ukuku's, a restaurant recommended by Lonely Planet (have I mentioned how useful that book was), that was over the pedestrian street that's near the main plaza. The kids had pizza and pasta; Stace and I had some alpaca smothered in a great garlic sauce.

We saw a beautiful sunrise over Lake Titicaca Wednesday morning. We had a quick breakfast in the hotel. Jane insisted on eating only sugar. A van took us to the marina to head out to the Uros Islands. The Uros are floating islands made of reeds. These same reeds can be eaten too. We tasted them and they were okay. The islanders have to consistently add more reeds to prevent the island from sinking as the old reeds become waterlogged. Our tour boat was full of people mostly from other Latin American countries plus a nice couple we got to know from Australia. The islanders were nice. The first island taught us about their culture and way of living, let us check out their huts, showed us their handiwork, and rowed us to another island. The second island we visited was a pure tourist trap, but still neat to walk around.

The islanders had super white teeth. Maybe it's related to the reed they always eat. They were also big people, which seems odd on one hand since they are on a floating island, but on the other hand they can't go running around.

On the way back to the hotel, we saw a religious procession going on near the plaza. A band plays some sad music. A group of men carry a statue. A picture of flower petals is formed on the road. Puno has a lot of these.

Back at the hotel, the staff attacked the kids...with their cell phone cameras. It was as though they had never seen anyone with non-black hair.

We drove off in the afternoon to get up to Cuzco.

You can click on the photos below to go to the larger images.