Above: Lago Titicaca
The morning after completing the Machu Picchu Inca trail, I took a Cruz del Sur bus from Cusco to Puno, arriving in the folklore town 7 hours later at 3 in the afternoon. After checking in at Hostal Los Pinos, I walked around town a bit, grabbed a quick bite and bought a 2D/1N tour of Lake Titicaca (for a mere US$20) for the following day. The toll of the Machu Picchu Camino Inca finally hit me and I crashed - sleeping from 6:30 PM to 6 AM the following morning! I was also nursing spider and mosquito bite wounds and very sore calf muscles from the trek.
Puno struck me as a small and quaint town with very health-conscious inhabitants as I saw many ancient, natural, herbal remedy tea and prescription shops there. I came across 2 local nutritious fare in Puno that were apparently endemic to the Puno-Lake Titicaca region. One was the Api and the other, the Pesque de Quinoa con Queso Leche y Canihua. Both were tasty!
Above left: Api con Empanada;
Above right: Pesque de Quinoa con Queso Leche y Canihua - for breakfast
Lake Titicaca tour: Uros-Amantani-Taquile isles
The world's highest navigable lake at 3,800 m above sea level felt like a sea with its vast size and deep blue (sometimes greenish) water color. The lake is shared by Peru and Bolivia with an area ratio of 60:40 respectively.
The 2 days/1 night tour brought me first to the 40-odd man-made islands of Uros where descendants of the Uros Indians still live on floating islands made of tortora reeds. I felt an overwhelming tourist trap there at Uros and was eager to leave for our next stop at Amantani where we would spend time with an assigned local indigenous family. Amantani was surreal and pleasant. Interestingly, while there were no modern modes of land transportation and families there still survive on subsistence agriculture on terraced lands, the communities in Amantani have learned to harness the sun's energy by installing solar cell panels onto the roofs of their old adobe huts and houses. My host family proudly revealed that since they installed the solar panels 3 years ago, their electricity bill has been reduced substantially to almost negligible. The solar cells supposedly have a 20-year lifespan. The next day, after breakfast, we left Amantani for Taquile - another natural island like Amantani that was populated with indigenous people in colorful traditional attire and with special weaving talents. We had a nice lunch at a restaurant overlooking the lake....the ambiance there reminded me of Greek's Santorini island.
The 2 days/1 night tour brought me first to the 40-odd man-made islands of Uros where descendants of the Uros Indians still live on floating islands made of tortora reeds. I felt an overwhelming tourist trap there at Uros and was eager to leave for our next stop at Amantani where we would spend time with an assigned local indigenous family. Amantani was surreal and pleasant. Interestingly, while there were no modern modes of land transportation and families there still survive on subsistence agriculture on terraced lands, the communities in Amantani have learned to harness the sun's energy by installing solar cell panels onto the roofs of their old adobe huts and houses. My host family proudly revealed that since they installed the solar panels 3 years ago, their electricity bill has been reduced substantially to almost negligible. The solar cells supposedly have a 20-year lifespan. The next day, after breakfast, we left Amantani for Taquile - another natural island like Amantani that was populated with indigenous people in colorful traditional attire and with special weaving talents. We had a nice lunch at a restaurant overlooking the lake....the ambiance there reminded me of Greek's Santorini island.
Photos from Uros:
Above: Check out the solar panel...the electricity source for her TV!
Photos of my homestay at Amantani:
Above: My bedroom (on the second floor)
Above: Note the solar panels on the roof
Above: The courtyard area adjacent to the kitchen
Above: Inside the kitchen - cooking was done mostly with firewood
Above: With 5-year-old Kerry, the host father's niece, on their patch of agricultural land
Above: Modest dinner at the homestay
Photos of an evening hike up a hill on Amantani:
Above: What an amazing mix of the elements - dark rain clouds and heavy wind on one side and orange sunset colors on the other side!
Above: Evening entertainment at Amantani; we were decked out in their traditional attire
Photos from Taquile:
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