Puno and Lake Titicaca

A lake between Colca and Puno
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We rolled into to Puno late at night, so all we saw were thousands of lights glowing in a semicircle around a black expanse -- Lake Titicaca, the highest navigable lake in the world.

To get to Puno, we had been driving for hours from Colca. Much of the drive was along a smooth highway, which was lined by a dog every couple hundred yards. As you drive by, the dogs jump up and bark expectingly. They belong to the alpaca herders unseen in the hills, our driver said, but they sit along the road because they've gotten used to people throwing them food out the windows of passing cars.

The peaceful tribe decided to float into Lake Titicaca and build its own islands

A tortora reed boat passes between the Uros islands.
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Shortly before reaching Puno, we paid a toll and then immediately entered absolutely awful roads leading to the city of Juliaca. The closer we got to Juliaca, the worst the road got. Soon, we were on a detour driving through something like a mudpit. Downtown Juliaca was little better. The city has nearly 1 million residents, the driver said. When I asked him what the leading industry was, he told me contraband. Smuggled across the lake from Bolivia to avoid taxes, there is a thriving black market for absolutely anything in Juliaca. The only reason to go is the airport. Keep driving.

The Uros spend their entire lives on their floating islands, though many kids row into Puno for high school.
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We got to our hotel, Pukara (see review) and gave a fond farewell to our driver and his wife. The walk to our rooms on the third floor was positively breathtaking. It's the altitude. It makes it very hard to breathe.

After some Peruvian pizza, we were early to bed. We arranged our tours to Uros, the amazing floating islands for the next morning (a sidenote, the hotel adds 5-10 soles per person for itself, so you might as well book the tour directly). We also lined up a tour to the archaeological site of Sillustani for the next afternoon.

Tortora is piled high and deep to make the islands. It is continually added to the top of the island as it disintegrates from the bottom.
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In the morning, we climbed to the sixth floor, and after catching our breath, had breakfast. I haven't mentioned the Peruvian breakfasts, but they are much more satisfying than a bowl of cereal. Usually, there is some sort of grain, which you put in a bowl with lots of fruit and a liquid, often fruit flavored sweet yogurt. There are also usually breads and eggs.

On the floating islands

At 9 a.m. we began our tour of the floating islands of Uros. A combi (mini-bus) picked up from the hotel and took us to the docks. As we waited for the different groups to board, a young man played Ob-la-di, ob-la-da on the panflute, earning an extra tip from this group of Beatles fans.

An Incan funeral tower at Sillustani.
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Our guide came running onto the boat, short of breath. The original guide had suffered some sort of accident, he said, and he was our new guide. His name was Jean Alexander, a bit of a mystery as he was very much Peruvian. Upbeat and energetic, here was a man who loved being a tour guide.

The boat took about 20 minutes to reach the first island of our visit. It is fascinating and mind-boggling. About 1,200 years ago, a tribe called the Uros decided it wanted to escape the violence of two warring tribes. The peaceful tribe decided to float into Lake Titicaca and build its own islands, primarily using a reed that cover square kilometers of the lake, called tortora. The reed is central to life of the Uros people, who survive by fishing, hunting and now tourism. The houses are made of reeds, they burn reeds to cook food, they even eat the soft bottom part of the reed. I tried a bit of the reed, and it tasted rather like lake water, but was palatable.

A lake even higher than Titicaca, though quite a bit smaller.
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The people were very nice, and one of the men showed me the handmade gun he uses to hunt waterfowl. The people there speak Aymara, mostly, though they've learned Spanish, the older people speak it differently than mainlanders. The women sell intricate weavings, and the man sell items constructed from the reeds. Also, for five soles you can take a boat ride to another island.

The boats are little marvels. They, too are built out of reeds, but are big enough to hold about 15 people. Now, the Uros weave empty plastic bottles into the boats and use nylon ropes, and the boats last about a year longer.

An eagle circles above Sillustani.
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We went to a second island, called Kon-Tiki. There are about 50 islands, and a little more than half are open to tourists. It's hard to get a firm count on the islands. Sometimes when a group on one island has been fighting too much, they will decide they can no longer stand to live together. Then, using a huge saw, the group (usually an extended family)  will cut the island straight down the middle. Jean Alexander said he has seen it happen three times.

On the island I met a sweet 14-year-old named Juana who does wonderful oil paintings of life on the island. Kon-Tiki also has a viewing tower, from which you can see many of the other islands. On the open islands, women stand of the side and wave to the passing boats, hoping their friendliness will lure the driver to pick their island.

After the visit, we climbed aboard the boat and cruised for about 25 minutes back to the docks. Before we got off the boat, Jean shared with us a bit of philosophy, which I'll sum up like this: Life is beautiful. Keep traveling. Be happy! "Never be angry, maybe hungry, but never angry!" "La vida es un regalo bello!" Thank you, Jean Alexander.

Back in Puno, we headed to a restaurant called La Choza de Oscar for a great lunch, maybe the best in Peru (see review for more).

Tombs of the Incan kings

Right after lunch, Mom, Beth and I boarded a mid-size bus to Sillustani. By coincidence, we bumped into two European girls who were on our tour in the morning. This happens a lot on the Gringo Trail, you keep seeing the same people. After the last hotel pick-up, our guide hopped on. Holy cow! It is Jean Alexander once more!

The bus climbed high about Lake Titicaca to Sillustani, a royal burial ground. Sillustani is a burial ground, but the odd thing is that the tombs are large towers that dot the area around two lakes. Each tower had a closed chamber that held a mummy and its belongings, but some of the towers were probably 40 feet tall. There are two types: one has rough stones held together with mortar. These belong to the Pukara culture, which predates the Incas by several hundred years. The second has perfectly smooth stones, which interlock without mortar. These were the burial grounds of Inca nobility.

Jean led us around Sillustani with equal zeal, telling legends about the site, and its history. It was a beautiful day, with a blue sky, teal lakes and bright green vegetation. An eagle circled overhead.

Around five p.m., we began the trip back to Puno, about 45 minutes. On the way, we stopped at a tradition farm house, where a woman prepared some local food, including chips made from the quinua grain. There was a little two story house built for guinea pigs -- a delicacy, not a pet, in Peru. (I could eat alpaca, but I couldn't bring myself to order cuy, as it is called.) Before we got off the bus, we once more had the pleasure of basking in Jean's philosophy: Keep traveling, life is good.

That night we returned to La Choza de Oscar for another great meal, and got a good night of sleep before our flight from Juliaca the next morning.