Camino Real Turistico Puno

After not many hours sleep I frantically packed my bags and had breakfast, to get a minibus to the bus terminal. We caught a public bus for 6 hours to Puno, but it was much nicer than the other public busses we'd been on. The only problem was that it got extremely hot and we were all glad to get out for some (kind of) fresh air in Puno. The city of Puno sits on the shores of Lake Titicaca, and it looked very pretty as we descended into the town. Unfortunately up close it wasn't quite so nice,...

The rain had continued through the night, and the ground was sodden when we walked down the beach at 8am to catch the boat back to Puno. We were back in a sunny Puno before 11am, which meant that our room in the hotel wasn't quite ready when we arrived. It didn't really matter though, because the water wasn't hot in the shower when we got up to the room anyway. Sonja and I found a restaurant in town with chicken pies and apple pie for dessert. We stocked up on snacks at the supermarket, befor...

Tuesday

Took tuc-tucs down to the harbour, and then spent the day on small boat going out to the floating reed village of Unos on Lake Titicaca. About 40 islands in all made completely from reeds and floating on the lake. They have been existing like that for hundreds of years. However, the down side is that the reeds are degradable material, so they have to remake their homes and boats every three weeks. Oh to be a builder on the lakes. They took us for a row around their home island ...

After our trek to MP we made our way down to Puno. Puno is a completely different city from Cusco and doesn't have any resemblance to it. It's more of a modern type city where there is a lot of commerce etc. Puno is right on the edge of Lake Titicaca and this was the purpose of our visit. Lake Titicaca is the largest high altitude lake in the world and is at some points about 300m deep! The surroundings are absolutely stunning. However, on Sunday we chilled out and didn't do too much, except ...

Pachamama have arranged for both groups to return to Cusco this morning. Team B arrives first from Haucatinco. This is a surprise since they have the longest journey. Team A arrives a couple of hours later. Buses have been arranged to take us from the hostel to the bus terminal to catch the 2pm bus to Puno. The bus eventually leaves Cusco at about 2.30pm. Within about half an hour the bus loses power, the drive gets out and does something with the engine and we set off again. This process is ...

Extract from team diary (Anna). "The best nights sleep ever. Breakfast included - score !! It was lush: ham and cheese, bread buns, melon and tiny bananas - hhmmmm! At about 7.30am we got tricyles to take us all to the harbour - so much fun - races! Got boats to the floating islands (Uros islands) and a mad guide (approx). The islands felt so weird, a bit like a trampoline. And of course there were gifts to buy, exclusively from Lake Titicaca, even though I saw them in Cusco the next day. Had...

Saturday April 23rd 2005 Caught the 8.30 bus to Puno, having seriously overpaid for it before the Inka Trail - at $20 rather than maybe $7-8. Bus climbs high, to 4300m, where there is vegetation and Llamas and sheep, and then travel through the desolate town of Juliaca, where the outskirts look just horrible, though the city centre is a little better, if chaotic. Mob of touts to meet us at Puno bus terminal, and accept the free ride from one of them to an OK hotel, the Camino Real. Puno itsel...

May 7, 2008 Puno, Peru Exchange rate: $1 = 2.75 nueve soles We are staying at the Camino Real for $30 a night. We are still suffering from our Andean colds and there is no heat in our room (no surprise), so we rent a space heater from the hotel for another ten soles a night. The space heater doesn't put out that much heat but it may make the difference along with the antibiotics and decongestant we bought at a farmacia last night. At home we are not smart enough to get antibiotics without a d...