Day 13/14 - Puno and the Uros Islands

Another Uros island
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Yesterday, I came back from Ollantaytambo and my trip to the Machu Picchu. I arrived at 12:30 with the local bus from Urubamba. I was initially planning to stay another night in Cusco and then take the bus to Puno today. But I thought I would still check out what the next departures were. I walked 30 minutes to the "Terminal Terrestre" and I was lucky enough to find a seat for the 14:30 bus to Puno with Ormeño. That would give me just enough time to grab some food and go.

The bus rides from Cusco where it takes a few mountain roads but it quickly stops to leave place to a pretty flat valley. This valley then becomes wider and wider until Puno and the Lake Titicaca. This is in fact the beginning of the altiplano, a huge area of flat lands located between two Cordilleras. The altiplano continues and crosses the whole of Bolivia. La Paz, Oruro and Uyuni are located rght in it (but neither Sucre nor Potosi).

Ollantaytambo street
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So I arrived at the hostal I booked on the phone while waiting for the bus and wow, it's so nice to have a TV and a private shower!

After a good night of sleep, I went on a tour to the Uros islands, the famous floating islands where the Uros indians retreated some 600 years ago after losing against the Incas. They first started to live in boats but then quickly elaborated a technique to build floating islands with the local plant, similar to the common reed. They also used their roots to eat, and the stem to build their houses. Well, that's a good example of optimum use of one natural resource.

How to build an island
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The Uros indians have since then largely mixed but the islands are still there. While they're not all living on them, it still looks pretty much like the way it was 600 years ago, excepting the school, the hospital and the solar panels that have since been introduced :)

The people there were really nice, almost as if we were the first tourists they saw. It was quite surprising as I thought it would have become more corrupted than that... again all because of us, tourists, unfortunately.

Me on an Uros Island
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The lake Titicaca is a very peaceful place, looking more like a small sea than a lake though. The sun is still with us. Morning was good. It's just perfect.