Information on Puno and Lake Titicaca
Puno
Puno lies at nearly 4000m above sea level, on the shores of lake Titicaca, It has a population of about 120000 people. The airport is located at the neighboring town of Juliaca, about 50km away. Juliaca is an industrial town, of no interest to tourists, apart from its airport. It does however contain an excessive number of cycle rickshaws.
Puno is a base to explore the Lake. The town itself is not particularly interesting for tourists. It had a pretty main square with plenty of boys shining shoes. Puno has almost no cycle rickshaws due to its hilly geography.
Bolivia is close. A bus could get you to the border in a couple of hours. As such there is a lot of customs checkpoints, looking for contraband goods, as they are a lot cheaper in Bolivia. An interesting example I came across recently was a small chocolate bar made in Peru, called Sublime ( delicious, by the way ). It costs just 1 sol. I bought the chocolate in Peru, it is made in Peru, but the one I bought had an imported into Bolivia by xxx sticker on it..... contraband chocolate sold back in Peru!
Things to do in Puno:
Sillustani.
This is an Inca cemetery. It contains many burial towers from Inca and pre Inca times. MORE SOON.....
The Floating Uros Islands.
The Uros Islands are floating communities of Uros Indians who build their homes on Islands made from the reeds that are native to the shallow shores of the Lake.
They originally moved onto the lake to escape fighting between the various indian tribes. The Incas unified all these tribes in the 1500's, but the Uros people chose to stay on their floating homes.
Nowadays the majority of the 4000 or so of them left live their life quietly, however some have welcomed the recent tourists, and so there are some islands that the tourists can visit. They are given a demonstration of how life is for these people. It's a very photogenic trip, with the blue lake, the reed Islands with their colourful inhabitants and their reed boats.
Taquille Island.
This Island is about 2 hours boat ride from Puno. Its interesting feature are its friendly inhabitants. They are a colourful group of Quechua speaking indians.
The men spend their time knitting hats. These hats signify their marital status. They carry coca leaves inside the hats. A red hat means the man is married, while a red and white hat means he is single. Similarly, women wearing yellow or white tee shirts/shirts signifies single, any other colour means married.
It's a very peaceful place, with friendly residents, relatively unspoilt by tourism and the outside world. Crime is almost unheard of here.
