PUNO ON LAKE TITICACA, Peru - 13th & 14th September

13th September, Wednesday - Up early, and rushed out to the bus station, after a quick breakfast. We, and especially Letay, will miss the comfort and security of familiar surroundings of Cusco & this cosy Amaru hotel. After Bogota, this is probably the longest (4 days) we have stayed in one place. Almost five days earlier, we had bought tickets from a man who claimed to be part of the Ormeno Bus Company - although he only had a receipt book, and who kept dropping his price the longer we took to decide. On an impulse we paid for three seats but later we began to have our doubts that there would even be a bus. However, when we got to the bus-stop, located beneath this huge statue of Pachacuti the greatest Inca, there was an Ormeno Bus, and with our names on the list...and the seats right up in front with a large front window view, as he promised..........at the low price too. Another lesson in trust learned.

The trip to Puno was quite uneventful and not very spectacular, especially as we were not changing altitude too much. Puno on the shores of the Lake Titicaca, was only around 400m (at 3870m) higher than Cusco. The two front seats on the top deck kept Letay occupied well enough with the large view, and the little table (bar, actually) infront served as a great place for doing her colouring. For her birthday she got a Peru colouring book that she loves because it has pictures of places she has been to. The six hour trip took us across some dusty terrain, especially around the town of Juliaca, where we stopped for a few minutes. It looked like a one street, dusty, commercial town, with the highway running straight thru its middle. The ocassional marshy land on the way indicated that we were nearing Lake Titicaca, the highest navigable lake in the world.

We got to Puno at around 3pm. The first view of Puno from the top was a bit depressing, seeing dusty roof tops and flat 4-5 storey buildings scattered down the hill. The real thrill though was seeing the vast expanse of Lake Titicaca stretching out away from the town.

Puno however began to look more actractive as we came downhill into town - the streets certainly have some character. Not colonial buildings but narrow streets with the facades of buildings painted in bright colours, small market places, and quite a bit of an Andean character. Went to a hotel recommended by the young lady at the Amaru in Cusco. Hostal Margerita - It was small but okay and the old lady that ran it was so warm and personal.

Once settled in the room we went out- first to a Tour agency as we wanted to go out to live on one of the islands for a night on the 15th. Rossini's birthday which was the next day, would be spent in Puno. Not the best of places to be in; Cusco would have been ideal. We found the one recommened agency in the book called ''Allways". The person - Victor, who owned this agency was a dedicated old man who took every customer seriously. He was very helpful and the agency seemed very resposible and sincere. We decided we would go to Amantani and Tequille Islands and spend the night on Amantani.

Dinner was at one suggested by Victor called "Remembrances"; a cosy, warm place with a fire (it was very cold and chilly outside this time of the day). We had the best soups here. Did not want to stay out in the cold so we went back to the hotel. Rossini went out to check mail and update the blog. That suited Letay and me very well as we wanted to organise a little for Rossini's birthday the next day. We did not really have any special presents - just the icon paintings, a clay statue from Ayacucho and a wine bottle; he knew of them all. We wrapped them up , blew ballons and hid them in the cupboard and Letay made a cute card. She was excited about doing all this in secret.

Rossini came back soon (fast internet connection) and we were all asleep early.

14th September, Thursday - Rossini's Birthday - We wished Rossini early in the morning and gave him the presents and Letay, very excitedly brought out the balloons and gave him the card she'd made.

As we decided to change our hotel today - to one down the road, two buldings away (lower price, brighter room), we packed quickly, had breakfast and left. The lady at the new hotel did not keep the promised room that we'd liked, so we had to find another place. Rossini walked around and found one not too far away called Maison d' Lago. The lady that ran this place was very grandmotherly and did not hesitate to drop her price to what Rossini said we could afford. Once we got our bags into the new hotel, it was Rossini's day.

There was not much to do in Puno - there were a few sites and museums highlighting the life around the lake but if you were actually going to spend time with a family on the island, these museums were a bland alternative.


Puno had a few tacky white modern concrete statues (of Pachacuti or a lion, or a condor) built high up in the hills at sites where you could view the city from. These too were certainly not worth the climb. It was best to just walk the streets, sit at a cafe, or sit on a bench in one of the two plaza's and watch the people.

There seemed to be a great mix of people from Peru, and quite a few very traditional & simple from one of the many Islands on the lake, coming into town to batter their ware (cereal, alpaca wool clothes, etc) for vegetables, rice or some essential. As Rossini preferred to just sit somewhere and watch people and that's what we did . We walked to the plaza and sat at the cathedral steps for sometime. There were a lot of the Andean women with different bowler type of hats and the huge layered skirt.

We then found a cafe with a balcony and watched people over the plaza. Letay and Rossi wrote their diaries; something that she loved to do with Rossini. We had very tasty authentic pasta here and excellent service - the waiter actually split the pasta dish into two, serving a different sauce with each as we could not make up our mind about what to have.


From here we went to a very colourful cafe for some coffee. This was a very chic cafe with bright coloured lounging sofas. Letay sat in the large window seat and wrote her diary, while just watched a group of women sitting just outside the window. It was quite interesting to note that before they each had a sip of the drink they were sharing, they each poured a bit on the ground - an offereing to Patcha-Mama (mother earth) was always a part of daily life. We had seen this happen almost as an unconcious reflex before a drink very often.

The sun was shining and it was quite perfect to be outside so we moved to the other plaza further down, closer to our hotel, which was quite colourful. Letay and Deepa had their shoes polished and the shoe-shine guys did a brilliant job and extended the work a bit to make conversation. Rossini walked a bit, took photographs and struck up conversations with anyone on the street - with Peruvian people from all over it was easy enough to greet, and start conversations saying "De Donde Ustedes" (..where are you from).



Walked down to the local Mercado to buy some stuff to take with us for the Island family that we would be living with. Victor (the tour agent) is very socio-concious and asked us not to take any sweets or pencils or paper that tourists for some strange reason think is necessary. He requested we instead take fruit and evaporated milk (as the Islands had no cows), and inexpensive books for children to read to encourage reading amongst the children & families. He had also organised various teaching programmes to help the parents on the Islands to read, so that this would generate a reading culture at home for the young children - Victor had recruited some University students from the USA as volunteers to help with this programme. The walk through the local market to buy fruit was certainly interesting.

So far Rossini's birthday had not been that great and we had to find a nice place for dinner as so . Before dinner we took the wine bottle that we'd bought in Chincha, down to reception and shared it with the Segnora Magda, who owned the hotel, her son Ivo, and the maid Maxima. Magda was very affectionate and broke into a spontaneous speech and toast to Rossini. Magda was always extremely nice to us, ever helpful and considerate - she seemed to want to drop her prices for us in half for everything (laundry, heater in the room).

For dinnere we decided to go to a restaurant Madga had suggested - Gloria, where there was some traditional song and dance performances. It was a bit touristy there but the dances were good and so too the costumes - the group singing were very authentic and keen to keep everyone entertained. It would have been all very well but for this English couple who were smoking at the table next to us. In the 2 hours that we were there, they must have had atleast 8-10 cigarettes each. They were really oblivious of all around and filled the small room with their smoke. They were even more irritating when they began requesting that the Andean group play some Beatles. They forced us to eat up quickly and leave the restaurant.

We had to be up early to go to the islands so we did not stay up late. Rented a heater from Magda as Puno seemed colder than any other place we had been to. We were dreading to think what the Islands would be like as we were told that they were freezing cold at night. Maxima the maid at the hotel was very affectionate too and said she would bring breakfast to the room at 6am.