We were
lucky to get a bus from Arequipa to Puno.
It seems the demonstrations we saw yesterday in the Plaza were the bus
drivers going on strike. No buses
to Lima or Cusco but Puno was spared and we had royal treatment on Cruz del
Sur; full reclining leather like first-class airline seats.
We arrived
in Puno on Lake Titicaca six hours later, checked into our hotel and
collapsed. We didn’t even go out
to dinner. Lake Titicaca lies in
the Altiplano (high plains) at 12,600 feet above sea level and the altitude hit
us like a ton of bricks.
After a good
night’s sleep we hired a taxi to the funerary towers at Sillustani on Lake
Umayo, as much to look for birds as to see the towers. The Colla people who pre-dated the
Incas built them. Interestingly the
stone houses of the people who live in the area today are identical in design
to the towers and are of the same period.
This
afternoon we took a boat tour on Lake Titicaca to see the floating islands of
Uros. Yes, it’s touristy but the
islands are truly unique. The
houses, the boats and the islands themselves are made from totura, a
papyrus-like reed. The islands are
3 meters thick and can last for 30 years if properly maintained. It is hardly
terra firma but it seems to work for several hundred people who live only three
of the 40 islands. When they
aren’t adding totura stalks, they make things to sell to the tourists.
