Puno, Home of Spectacular Floaters
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| The Floating Islands of Uros |
The Culture
We left
Arica bright and early in the morning. The journey to Puno was not at all easy. We arrived at
Arica bus station to be denied access to one bus, completely uncertain as to why. But then we got on the second bus which took us to Tacna. From Tacna it should have been easy to get to Puno, despite being in the terminal at 7:00 we were told that the 8:00 bus did not exist. As it turned out Tacna is a confusing place to take a bus from, there are about five different terminals. We finally found a bus we could take at 12:30 so we had a few hours to kill. We popped across the road to eat something for breakfast, chicken and rice which was actually really nice. Accompanying this however was Quinoa juice, that was an odd experience, it was hot as a lot of juice in Peru seems to be, but also tasted a bit like cornflakes, not the best really...
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| Some of the traditional clothed dancers |
After a painfully long day we arrived in Puno at about 9:30pm and trudged through the dark to our accommodation in Puno, which is just a simple guesthouse located a few blocks from the Plaza de Armas, the main square in Puno.
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| The Saint being paraded through the streets |
We decided that we would explore some of the town on our first day, a Sunday. As it turns out Puno had descended into parties and revelry! It was fantastic, brass bands, panpipe bands, drummers and dancers marched through the streets to various tunes as we milled around. There was a plethora of colourful outfits that all mingled together like some mad Andean Kaleidoscope. As a couple of 'Gringos' we looked rather out of place among the crowds but continued to walk around. We even had one man shout at us to join him for a beer, we politely declined as we were a little unsure of his level of intoxication. We looked around the shops and took in the smells of Puno, although not all were pleasant there often a strong smell of oranges from the various juice carts around the town. We then decided to buy a beer from one of the street vendors and drank that while watching the party goers mill around. Later we discovered that they were celebrating the saint patroness of the nearby town of Julianaca. We figured that this would be the end of the celebrations, but every day there seems to be a brass band around, last night and even at 5:30 this morning there were people marching through the streets yelling their support of a mayoral candidate for the town. All very unbritish, at least when Brexit was happening we only shouted about it inside our houses or workplaces... I do feel it's a good tactic though, wake someone up often enough and at some point they'll vote you in just to shut you up.
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| Some more colourful clothing |
Psst... if you want to see a video of the dancers and panpipes click
here!
The Food
Generally the food here has been lovely, we had a lovely soup ( that tasted like mum's roast lamb dinner) and a chicken/beef (possibly alpaca) rice for the bargain price of £2.50 all together. It was delicious, even with the suspicious black vegetables. This was also accompanied with a warm pear/blackcurrant flavoured (though green in colour) tea, which was much more pleasant then the Quinoa juice.
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| The food in the sweet cafe, so good! |
We had some lovely cakes, a swirly dulce leche cake (Andrew's) and a chocolate gateau (Olivia's much better) but alas Andrew won with his mango mousse cake we had the following day. We are trying to fatten up honestly.
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| Yes this is his usual eating face... remember this? |
Some of our time was spent in a little coffee shop that had these cute little earthenware cups, and chess sets for sale with little llamas as knights. They looked a bit dungeons and dragons-esque. Andrew had a lot of the suspicious 'meat' sandwiches... I opted for things I recognized, like pollo or sausage and not things that were labeled in ambiguous terms like 'fruit' and 'meat'. One such thing was like a toasted sausage pancake that you dipped into homemade guacamole. Delish. Andrew's options were pretty good in the end, one sandwich was a marinated beef with onions and tomato called 'Lomo Soltado' and the other was a mountain beef sandwich with egg and tomato. We also had some hot chocolate here, which was like proper cocoa, really bitter and gritty but overall not too bad.
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| A Cortado in the cute earthenware |
Ironically, this place is called Puno, we decided with one (perfectly safe, unambiguous, roast chicken) meal to try the local drink called Inca Kola, a limy nuclear colour that tastes a bit like fizzy bananas. We had gotten the diet version to be 'healthy.' Only upon consumption do we realise we needed to poohnoww. The toxic nuclear bubbles ripped through our intestines with such significance that we now have a saying as one of us leaves the room, which is accompanied with a nod, 'pooh now.' Beware the diet Kola option.
The Views
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| The Church at the Plaza de Armas |
Puno to be honest is not much to look at, building wise it is quite the eclectic mix of buildings, but there were some places that were really spectacular to see.
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| The other Church |
The first such place was the Plaza De Armas where there is an incredibly large church with some great carvings on the front. The square itself is a rather bustling place with frequent protesters, stallholders and all sorts of sights. On each day we went there, a brass band was featured or the military was marching around. All very nice and interesting and the church was nice and peaceful inside too, despite the festivities.
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| The view of Lake Titicaca from the Condor |
The second place was discovered quite by chance and is another church and square a few blocks away from the Plaza de Armas. We're unsure of it's name but the buildings were all very nice, bright and colourful, especially the church.
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| The Mighty Metal Condor |
I think for use though one place that was quite the achievement and view to behold was the Condor Viewpoint. In Incan mythology there are three sacred animals (I believe) which are the snake, the Puma and the Condor. They act as special messengers between the various planes of existence, the underground, the earth and the sky. In Puno there are two viewpoints in celebration of these animals, one is the Puma viewpoint (a little outside of town and we didn't visit it) the other is the Condor viewpoint which is located a stones throw from the Plaza de Armas. We intrepidly set off on our journey to the top of the hill to get the stunning views of Lake Titicaca, only to make it up one of the flights of steps and have a rest with about 20 more flights of steps to go. It was the altitude you see... definitely not all the cake... Although we may have had cake afterwards. We finally made it to the top (stopping roughly 20 times...) At the top there is a ginormous metal bird that watches over the beautiful lake below. It was a little concerning that some of it's wing feathers seemed to flap in the wind. But from the top you could see the town, the lake and all the way out to Uros, the floating village of Reed Islands.
The Floaters
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| A reed hut as we entered the Uros area |
I'm sure you will be pleased to know that this post is not at all endorsed by Inca Kola... By floaters we don't mean the results of the Kola, but the Floating reed islands that are out in lake Titicaca. We visited these islands on our last day, we were quite dubious as we had read a lot of negative things online about it being too commercial and a lot of hassle. Mostly what we had read was not to take a guided tour, and do it yourself, which was much cheaper and gave you the exact same experience as the official tours bar maybe a snack or small meal, which you can purchase cheaper on the main land.
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| A Reed Condor |
Although you book to go to the Island of Uros this is in fact a bit of a misnomer as you go to one of the 120+ floating Islands, all of which are fairly similar, but nowadays they mostly survive off tourism so it gives them a fair way of sharing them out.
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| the disconcerting whole in the middle of the Island |
So with all this doubt we still decided to attend the 'Floaters,' and to be fair it was quite a beautiful place with all the reeds everywhere, and that spongy texture under your feet. We had a quick talk by the wife of the Island Chief on how they made the islands. Firstly, dig stakes into the mud. Secondly wrap rope round them. Thirdly, layer freshly picked reeds on top in one direction. Fourthly, repeat reed things but in opposite directions. Fifth, repeat steps three and four over and over until the end of time. The reeds rot from the bottom up, so every so often you add another fresh layer of reeds to the top.
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| A model of the Island showing how they are made. |
Anyway after this brief explanation we were invited into the homes of various inhabitants to look at the goods they had 'produced,' most of which was general souvenir tat that you can buy anywhere for much cheaper and wasn't particularly home made. Then they brought over a big reed boat to take us to another island, which they demanded money for when you were trying to get off it. Which we had read about, so avoided by returning to our original locals boat. They did try and make you feel awkward for not getting the reed boat, but a number of people got off when they demanded the money before their departure. The more awkward bit was the singing... they sang various things in different languages including row row row your boat (ironic as the traditional reed boat is pushed to the other island by a motorboat). They then finished with the phrase 'Hasta la vista baby' all very cringy.
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| All the Reed things |
We waited on our boat to go to the other island. The other island was a bit more commercial than the previous islands. This one contains various rundown restaurants and nowhere in particular to be. The restaurants are very expensive, and worryingly we're unsure if any of the meat is refrigerated due to it literally being on an island of floating reeds.
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| The Capital Island |
It was nice to see but we wouldn't recommend making a special trip to Puno to see them. There was quite a lot of waiting around whilst they expected you to spend money there. Realistically its a ten mins tops event, with and hours waiting around. Despite the Island's history, nowadays it is simply a tourist cash cow comprising of the occasional overpriced tour (we read about someone who'd spent $70), people trying to convince you they live on the island (in reality most probably live in Puno) and various other ways of making more money from landing fees, optional paid passport stamps and overpriced restaurants and crafts.
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| Boaty Boat Boat the Reed Boat |
The history of the Uru people and their Islands however are very interesting, they consider themselves the owners of the lake and its water, believing to be descended from the Sun. According to legend the people have black blood in order to protect themselves from the cold (it's not like they can just light a fire on their little islands of kindling) and from drowning in the lake. It is also said that the islands were created to hide from the Incan forces. Another great use for the islands is that they are movable by simply removing the stake securing them to the lake floor. We were told this stake is very important so as not to float into
Bolivia without their passports. They were however discovered by the Incas who made them pay taxes or used them as slaves.
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| A Reed Arch |
And now to answer the question I'm sure you all want to know. I'm sure it's not how they cook on the island, obviously they build the fire on a stone plate that stops the reeds catching fire. The question I'm sure you're dying to know the answer to is what happens when they drink too much Diet Inca Kola. They construct little separate floating outhouses where the waste is then absorbed into the ground root layer so as not to contaminate the lake. So they sail away while nodding at the other Uru people and going 'Poo Now'
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| A panoramic of the Island we visited |
What next?
See some other posts
Have a look at our
Instagram we go to
Machu Picchu soon, our third wonder of the world. We also meet the parents (different ones to
China) !
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