For my final trip in during this stay in South America, I spent a weekend in Puno and on Lake Titicaca in southern Peru with Vanessa, my roommate and fellow volunteer at Manos Unidas. I had heard to Lake Titicaca before, but I never considered making the trip until Vanessa asked me if I wanted to go with her. I’m so glad we decided to go!
Last Monday, we walked around a couple of travel agencies in the Plaza de Armas to see what their tours of the area offered before finally settling on one. Perhaps we didn’t pick the best tour company to go with, but overall it wasn’t too bad…
Our adventure started Friday afternoon at 9:15 pm when we headed to the Terminal Terrestre in Cusco where the long-distance buses leave from. We were disappointed to learn that, despite asking numerous times, we were given semi-bed seats on the overnight bus instead of regular bed seats, which would have reclined a lot more. I probably slept about 2 hours that night during our 7 hour bus ride from Cusco to Puno, but oh well… The struggles continued when we had to wait 45 minutes in the cold upon our arrival to Puno at 4:45 am for our van to come. When it finally did, we were escorted into a dark, stuffy room at the travel agency, where we were supposed to just wait for 2 hours. Sleepy Sarah was not in the best of moods, but thankfully after eating some breakfast and finding some WiFi to connect with the outside world, I was feeling much better. By 7:00 am, I was ready for a nice weekend of adventure!
The first part of our tour involved a short boat ride from the Puno harbor to Islas Uros – man-made, floating islands in Lake Titicaca. The tours have a rotation system for visiting the islands, where the people make most of their money off of tourism. The island we stopped at was home to 6 small cottages and 24 people. We took a boat ride on their reed boat, which they call a “taxi” or “Mercedes Benz” and got a history lesson of the lake from our guide. Back on the island, we were able to buy some of the textiles that they make and learned a bit more about how the islands are constructed. In the past few decades, the number of floating islands in the lake has grown to 80!
Last Monday, we walked around a couple of travel agencies in the Plaza de Armas to see what their tours of the area offered before finally settling on one. Perhaps we didn’t pick the best tour company to go with, but overall it wasn’t too bad…
Our adventure started Friday afternoon at 9:15 pm when we headed to the Terminal Terrestre in Cusco where the long-distance buses leave from. We were disappointed to learn that, despite asking numerous times, we were given semi-bed seats on the overnight bus instead of regular bed seats, which would have reclined a lot more. I probably slept about 2 hours that night during our 7 hour bus ride from Cusco to Puno, but oh well… The struggles continued when we had to wait 45 minutes in the cold upon our arrival to Puno at 4:45 am for our van to come. When it finally did, we were escorted into a dark, stuffy room at the travel agency, where we were supposed to just wait for 2 hours. Sleepy Sarah was not in the best of moods, but thankfully after eating some breakfast and finding some WiFi to connect with the outside world, I was feeling much better. By 7:00 am, I was ready for a nice weekend of adventure!
The first part of our tour involved a short boat ride from the Puno harbor to Islas Uros – man-made, floating islands in Lake Titicaca. The tours have a rotation system for visiting the islands, where the people make most of their money off of tourism. The island we stopped at was home to 6 small cottages and 24 people. We took a boat ride on their reed boat, which they call a “taxi” or “Mercedes Benz” and got a history lesson of the lake from our guide. Back on the island, we were able to buy some of the textiles that they make and learned a bit more about how the islands are constructed. In the past few decades, the number of floating islands in the lake has grown to 80!
The next stop was Isla Amantani, the largest island on the Peruvian side of the lake with 4,000 inhabitants. We were greeted by local families, who we would be staying with that night. After a short but strenuous hike to our house, we settled in to our home for the night – which had no running water, no electricity, and beds as comfortable as concrete. Seeing the way the local people live is really eye-opening, especially when you think about how content they are with their lives when so many other people pity them for not having the technology of other parts of the world. Our host mom walked us 30 minutes to the Plaza de Armas, where we met up with the rest of our group for a hike up to a temple. It was a 45-minute walk up to Templo Pachatata – and boy was it difficult. Lake Titicaca is supposedly the highest lake in the world in terms of altitude, so we were hiking at 13,000 feet above sea level. It was a fabulous last hike in South America, though, because the view of the island and the sunset were absolutely spectacular.
After dinner, our host family appeared in our room with traditional outfits for us to wear to a gathering of all the local families of the community. They dressed us in floral shirts, giant skirts and black scarfs before walking us 25 minutes to a hall (with electricity) where there were dozens of other people dancing to live music. I felt quite touristy, but it was definitely a special experience and I’m glad I had an opportunity to do something so different from what I’m used to. After not sleeping the night before and all the walking and dancing, I passed out on my concrete bed at 10:00 pm.
The tour continued early next morning when we left at 7:30 am for Isla Taquile, a smaller island close to Amantani. When we reached the island, we walked 25 minutes up to the Plaza de Armas and hung out there for a while, enjoying the view and admiring the textiles that the men make on the island. We walked a bit further to a restaurant where we got demonstrations on how the local people make shampoo, how they grow their crops, and how marriages work. For example, when a woman gets married, she cuts off all her hair and makes it into a belt for her husband…
By about 12:30, we were ready to get back on the boat and head 2.5 hours back to Puno on the mainland. By 3:30, we were in the Plaza de Armas in Puno and had 6 hours to kill before our bus back to Cusco at 10:00 pm. Thankfully, a girl on our tour had brought a guide book and looked up a good restaurant with WiFi. We spent the next 6 hours at Colors, eating good food, drinking Chilean (<3) wine and using their WiFi to update the world that we were alive after not having electricity for a while. The bus back to Cusco was even worse than Friday’s bus, as I really didn’t sleep at all and was quite cranky while fighting with cab drivers at the Terminal Terrestre to bring down the cost of our cab home. Overall, though, it was a really great trip – the lake was absolutely beautiful and I’m glad I got to go on one last trip during this stay in South America.