A Weekend in Puno

Puno city

Janine and Madaline going down a giant slide

Tess, Madaline and myself in Puno

Went on a tour Saturday to Lake Titicaca, to see the floating artificial islands of Uros along with the natural island Taquile. Awoke 6am for a full day boat ride, starting first at Uros to check out Inca culture. Felt it was very touristy and contrived, making the whole experience a little socially akward. Nonetheless i still bought an Inca jacket and some jewerelly, so it wasn´t too bad.

At about 10am travelled 3hrs on the boat to the island Taquile for some good old Peruvian lunch, and to see some ruins. It was a much better trip, solely because it felt more natural and genuine. Got back an hour ago, resting at the moment but ready to go out for some dinner, drinks and live music. (Which they seem to have a lot of here)

On the way to Isle Usoro

Dressed in traditional Inca clothing in floating islands of Usoro

Isle Tequile

Sewing

Boat ride back - Lake Titicaca

Hiking up Isle Tequile

Yesterday was as exciting as the last. Got up at about 8.30am and was just hanging out in the hostel with Tess (the other 2 had left earlier that morning to go do some more lesson planning) when we started up conversation with one of the staff members. One thing led to another, and before we knew it we were on a bus with Erica (she was working part time at the hostel while studying english and tourism) on our way to see some archaelogical sites. We took 2 buses to finally arrive at Cutimbo, were we saw old inca ruins of sacred towers, used as tombs for inca government officials and other important members. You can probably liken them to the pyramids you would find in Mexico or Egypt, in the respect that the deceased were wrapped in clothes (i.e. mummified) and buried in the towers along with other goods. (Food, jewerelly etc) Because the sites were so untouched by tourists, we actually got to climb inside the tombs to check out the interior. It was amazing how the structure had sustained for so long, solely because the stones looked very unbalanced and unstable. The ruins were also based at the top of a mountain, which we took about 30 - 40mins to climb up... tough work!

Tess and I standing in front of the entrance sign to Cutimbo

Yes, we hiked up that to get to the towers. High altitude, veeery good exercise!

Deserted wasteland at Catimbo

The towers

The 'tour' went for about 4 hours, and really helped with my spanish! (and i'm guessing, Erica's english) When we finally got back to the hostel, Tess and i quickly picked up our bags and headed to the bus station for a 6hr ride back to Arequipa. Of course there were more complications with the bus, that being a blown tyre, but nonetheless we got back safe and sound by about 9pm.