Puno & Lake Titicaca

The Jungle gang returned to Cusco relieved to be back in cooler climes. Everyone that had stayed in Cusco was glad of their decision to relax, as those returning, were tired & exhausted from avoiding both the Amazon’s heat & insects for 2 long humid nights.

Together again the 16 of us caught a national bus down to Puno, our last Peruvian stop before crossing into Bolivia. We were lucky to arrive at the back end of a regional transport strike, as many of the roads had been blocked in protest until the morning we departed. We passed through the high southern Peru pass to our destination without hassle & arrived in the dirty, non descript town of Puno.

From Puno we spent the next 2 days island hopping around Lake Titicaca, (South America’s highest & the world’s highest navigable lake). Out 1^st port of call from Puno was to the Uros people, on the Isla Floatantes; floating islands of reeds, that have supported the escaping communities of local people from the aggressive Collas & Inca peoples for centuries. Now, sadly commercial, the communities continue to live on the floating reed beds mainly for tourism & the income that it brings them. The experience was probably the most fabricated part of our trip so far but none the less it was still fascinating to see how the islands were constructed, & I found myself marvelling at their ancestors’ ingenuity to avoid persecution.

We left our morning hosts & headed by boat further out into Lake Titicaca. The sun beat down & we all sheltered inside from the heat & strong sun (a stark contrast to the cold night time temperatures). A few of the returning jungle team were again struggling with altitude sickness, having dropped back to near sea level then back up to 3500m again. So we chewed on Coca leaves & drank copeous amounts of Coca tea too.

Our next port of call was Isla Taquille, where we stayed the night in friendly local home stays, in groups of 2 or 3. Paired up with Rob & Guto the 3 of us enjoyed the kind hospitality & cooking of Gerimono & his wife. At 4pm we were invite to play a game of footy, (which at altitude had us all gasping for air & slowing our pace down considerably). Then at 8pm, after a dinner of local broth & cereals we all joined together again & were shown how to fiesta local style, all dressed in traditional outfits. Underneath we’d all dressed for near Arctic outside temperatures, but were soon stripping off under layers to stop ourselves from passing out with heat exhaustion as we danced around the community hall.