Cusco & Puno: 13-17 August

Fresh from the Inca Trail, we returned to Cusco to rest our weary limbs and to look around the city that was the capital of the Inca empire, or 'the navel of the world'. Cusco is a very attractive town, the centre of which has retained a lot of it's character despite, or perhaps because of, the massive amount of tourists that pass through. There are still examples of the mortar-less Inca stonework down the many old cobbled streets and alleyways, as well as big colonial statements in the shape of the Cathedral and the many churches that were built on top of the Inca palaces and temples.

The main square is home to the Cathedral, that was built on the site of the Inca palace and is a massive construction and very ornate and somewhat gaudy inside, in contrast with it's fortress-like exterior. We had a mooch around before heading off into the alleyways behind the Cathedral in search of the 'Inca stone' a 12-sided carved stone that features on the Cusquena beer bottles. Aside from the churches and plazas, there are markets galore selling all kinds of souvenirs, and the central market, home to a zillion food and juice stalls alongside the cheese and butchers counters which makes for a powerful smell that follows your around, rather like the eyes of the various severed pigs heads! We also managed to fit in a few beers (and ciders!!) at Paddy's Bar – the highest 100% Irish-owned pub in the world apparently!

It was great to have a relatively low-key couple of days which allowed us to do some more reading about what we would like to see in Peru. Feeling a bit more refreshed, we bought some bus tickets and set off to our next destination – Puno and Lake Titicaca, which straddles the Peru-Bolivia border.

It's 7 hours on the direct bus from Cusco to Puno, our first long-distance bus ride in South America and only our 2nd one of this entire trip. We did look at catching the train, but it cost a walloping US$220 each, ten times more than the bus ticket. No more trains for us it seems.. We were pleasantly surprised by the bus journey; it was smooth, the roads were in a good condition and empty of traffic. The seats were big and comfortable and the Andean scenery was pretty amazing – lots of hills, snow capped peaks, scrubby plains and herds of llama and alpaca passing by. Even the onboard toilet was clean.

Puno doesn't have the charm or architecture of Cusco, indeed some of it resembles a building site, but it is a friendly enough place with plenty of bars and restaurants near the central square and Cathedral. The massive thing that Puno has going for it of course is that it is built right on the banks of Lake Titicaca which, at 8,500 square kilometres and up to 270m deep is the highest navigable lake in the world, sitting at an altitude of 3,870m above sea-level. The views over the town and out onto the blue waters that stretch to the horizon are spectacular. To add some context, that's about 20 times bigger than the Isle of Wight, or just under half the size of Wales.

We spent our first full day in Puno out on the lake. It seems that every man and his dog have a boat offering similar tours, so it's not difficult to find a seat on one of the fleet of small boats that head out every morning. 30 minutes or so out of port, we arrived at the floating islands of the Uros people. Apparently the Uros took to the lake in retreat from the advancing Incas, and have lived on the waters ever since. Their islands are built from the reeds that grow in this part of the lake and are anchored in place. Each small island is home to families who live in reed huts and there are even primary schools on a couple of the islands. They farm fish and trade goods between islands and at various markets ashore. By living out on the lake, they've managed to retain a lot of their culture (and avoid paying taxes) and still speak Aymara, as opposed to Quechuan/Spanish which is spoken in Puno and by the communities on the actual islands in the lake.

Tourism provides most of their cash and we spent a short while on one of the many reed islands being shown how the islands are made and how the people there live, before being paddled about on one of the reed boats. Fascinating stuff. Needless to say, the home-made souvenirs soon made an appearance and we've added yet more trinkets to our growing pile of tat!

Back on board our small boat, we headed another couple of hours out into the lake proper, towards one of the natural islands – Isla Taquile. The lake really is huge, stretching to the horizon in places, or bordered by snow-capped mountains that lie across the border in Bolivia. We came ashore on Taquile and walked up the steep hill of the island to the main town perched on the top, the main square of which was surprisingly big and bordered by some quite large buildings compared to the small houses that we had walked passed. We had lunch – Trout from the lake (or omelette for Sue), while looking out over the island and down to the waters below. It seems like every square inch of the island is terraced and used for some agricultural purpose or other. After eating, we walked across the island and down to another small port where our boat was waiting for us and the return trip to Puno.

We had another lazy day in Puno, looking around and packing up again ready for another bus trip to Arequipa, Peru's second largest city.

That's it for now, thanks for your messages – missing you all very much!
Dan & Sue