Puno Trip!

Time to open up the Second Book of Benjamin* to the Bucket List page and check something off because last week I saw Lake Titicaca. For anyone who is giggling at the name Titicaca, I get it. No shame. But since the name is Aymara and not Spanish, the name actually means "Rock of the Puma."

Lake Titicaca is a unique place in the world. For one, it's a massive lake sitting high in the mountains at 12,507 feet above sea level. It's also the home of the Bolivian naval fleet ever since Chile cut off Bolivia's direct access to the sea in the War of the Pacific. The lake is home to los Uros, a group of floating man-made islands. It's also believed to be the ancestral home of the Incas.

If you're staying in Peru, then Puno is the city to go to if you want to visit Lake Titicaca. According to the Mountain House's (admittedly outdated) copy of Lonely Planet Peru, Puno is the second most touristed city after Puno. Seeing as awareness of the fantastic culinary scene in Lima has grown a lot since our edition was published, that may have changed.

Los Uros

This was a disappointment. The tour of Los Uros is just too touristy. It feels more like a show and a plug for money than an actual example of living culture. We were encouraged to buy “hand made artisan products” (that looked exactly like products you can buy pretty much everywhere in Peru) and the tour held extra hidden fees. I don't recommend this tour unless you really want to be able to stay you stood on a floating island.

“Ben, what do you mean by floating island?”

Good question, reader. Basically these islands are made by a base of earth and then topped with reeds from the lake. The reeds have to be replaced regularly as the reeds at the bottom rot away. The islands are anchored to the lakebed so that they don't float across the lake with the wind. They're kind of like docks, but squishier to walk on. The stack of stuff next to the man in this picture represents a cross section of a floating island.

“And what's the point of making them?”

That depends on who you ask. Lonely Planet says the people who originally made the floating islands were trying to get away from the Incas and other local aggressors. The guide at los Uros said they were trying to get away from the Spanish. But that struck me as an example of over-blaming the Spanish for everything bad that happened (I've been told before that there was no alcoholism or rape before the Spanish came. Anyone who knows anything about humans knows that that's simply not true.)

Of course, the threat level of an Inca (Or Spanish) attack has diminished in the last century or two. Depending on who you ask, as much as 70% of the people who are out on los Uros on a given day actually go home to houses on the shore at night. If you're wondering why they would go out the islands during the day, tourism and fishing are the two best bets.

Your third best bet is that the general store is a boat!

Las Chullpas de Sillustani

First off some clarification. Sillustani is the name of the historic park that contains the chullpas. Chullpas are funerary towers. Pre-colombian cultures buried their important people inside towers constructed out of stone. This practice lasted from about 1100 AD to 1550 AD. Then the Spanish abolished it as pagan. This was a really cool site because there were examples of the various styles of architecture from the different cultures. You can see how the style of architecture developed over time (perhaps as technologies changed) from the relatively short towers of pre-Incan society to the much taller and more precise towers built by the Incas.

Here's a man for size comparison.

This is a sweet looking Incan ruin. The blocks are huge and the surface is smooth.

These are pre-Incan. You can tell by the size and how bumpy they look.

Puno

Puno itself is a fun city. It has a small, but busy, downtown area centered around two plazas that are a few blocks apart. With the Lake right there is has a natural beauty that overshadows the man-made beauty inside the city.

Cathedral in the morning sun

A Puno panorama. (Click the image to enlarge it)

I kept my expenses as low as I could, eating lunches at a menu (restaurant with a limited set of options for a two course meal that costs between 5-8 soles) and shopping at the market to cook myself past for dinners. But I did treat myself to a lot of baked goods from a bakery around the corner from my hostel and a few drinks. I was told that I couldn't go to Puno without trying huajsapata so I made that a priority. It's a hot drink made with orange juice, pisco, wine (or sometimes rum), and spices. It tastes like hot cider.

The day I arrived the biggest High School in Puno, San Carlos, was celebrating its anniversary. The students were out in force on the streets, carrying saints, playing music, marching, dancing, singing, and making all kinds of joyous ruckus. They mixed their traditions with their modern tastes to make an entire day and night of celebration that was entirely their own, and really fun to watch.

These two bands (above and below) were having a battle of the bands the pitted
traditional Andean panpipes against the modern marching band.
The marching band barely had a chance in such a touristed town.

A group of students dancing through the streets.

The song these boys are dancing to
is the relatively unkown Andean melody "Turn Down for What"

The next day there were all sorts of celebrations for La Virgen de la Candelaria, the patron saint of Puno.

Yes. Those really are man-sized panpipes.
The drums were too loud to hear if he was actually making music with them.

“More trips, more friends.”

The day I left for Puno I saw this coke billboard which translates to “more trips, more friends.”

That's certainly what happened on my trip. I made friends with the two attendants at the hostel by taking some time to chat with them and ask about their lives, and also by helping them get rid of some bothersome customers that didn't speak much Spanish. I got to learn more about the area from them, and one even invited me to come fishing with him next time I'm in Puno. The other benefit of getting friendly with the staff was that I could use the kitchen to make myself dinner. Technically my hostel doesn't offer the kitchen. But I've travelled enough that I know it pays to ask and I've worked in service jobs enough to know it pays to be pleasant.

Boom! Dinner at the cost of S/.4 and some friendly conversation.
There are some things money can buy. For everything else, there's friendliness.

I made friends with some of the other people on my boat when I went to see los Uros. One lives in Arequipa (2^nd biggest city in Peru) and gave me her card to look her and her family up whenever I pass through there. Another person recognized me from the dances in Andahuaylillas the day of San Pedro y San Pablo. My favorite was a woman who was traveling with her son and grandchildren. After we took a picture together, she said “your girlfriend will be jealous if she sees this!” I assured her I'd keep it a secret.

Never show this picture to anyone I date. Are we clear?

And I made friends with a group of 4 travellers (2 women from the Netherlands, a man from Switzerland, and a young woman who just graduated college from Canada) when I spent the afternoon in a coffee shop. We ended up getting dinner together before catching our buses to our next destinations.

When I was on my way to Bangkok last year, I found myself on a bus from Laguardia to JFK sitting next to a young woman from China. We started talking about various trips we had taken. “I love traveling by myself,” she said. “When you travel with a group, you're with the group the whole time. When you travel by yourself, you're with everyone.” That definitely rang true on my Puno trip.

*that's my current journal