Well, who doesn't know that Lake Titicaca is the highest navigable lake in the world? It seems to be the one thing that nearly everyone knows.
The bus trip to Puno on Lake Titicaca takes about 7 hours, with the bus juddering alond and averaging only about 40kmh because of the state of the road. I sit next to an English girl looking out at the view through panoramic windows and our conversation is going along nicely until I mention I'm dying to eat guinea pig, when a distinctly chilly feeling emanates from her, and she tells me she's vegetarian and looks at me like I'm a child murderer - why do people get upset over eating small animals, but not big ones?
(Note to myself, find out if a person is vegetarian before talking to them about eating exotic animals).
Arrive in Puno, the main town on the lake that evening and have a wander around. Puno is considerably higher than Cusco (4000 metres), and it's a lively town with hordes of locals in the streets at dusk, and I spend a while watching a traffic policeman standing in a podium at a crossroads and directing the traffic with a red fluorescent wand.
Later I eat a big plate of fried trout, then wander around the street stalls (when will I ever learn?) and eat a dessert of hot rice pudding with a sauce of mashed sweetened purple corn - delicious.
One of my little pecadilloes, of which there are a few, is to find wrongly spelt, mistranslated, or otherwise funny items on menus. Once at Arthur's Pass in New Zealand I found a restaurant which had on the menu Coq au Vent (chicken with wind?). Somehow I think they got it mixed up with Vol au Vent - obviously the companion dish should have been Vol au Vin (flight with wine?)
Here are a few translations from the menu at Puno:
- Piernitas de cuy con torreja de quinoa
Translation: Guinea pig legs & quinoa omelette with hot pepper, quinoa, and Italian pumpkin
- Enrollado de jamon de alpaca con legumbre
Tr: Rolled of alpaca's jam and legumes
- Alpaca a la Milanesa
Tr: Crumbled alpaca with eggs
- Papas con ocopa
Tr: Potatoes with Peruvian typical cream of pepper, peanuts, milk, cookies and cheese
The next day we got woken up early for a boat excursion on Lake Titicaca. We motor out through a channel in the reeds and head for the floating reed islands of Uros. I had read that they are inundated every day with thousands of tourists and expected the inhabitants to be pretty jaded and a bit pushy with the souvenirs, which they use to provide some income. The floating islands are amazing and the people are friendly and welcoming - yes, they do ask you to buy souvenirs but they're polite and not pushy at all. They live on islands made from a couple of metres of reeds, on which they have built little reed houses, and to which are tethered reed boats. The surface of the islands is soft and gentle to walk on and the reed people can't wait to get back after they have been to the mainland because the ground there is so hard for them. The reed boats last about 15 months before they become completely waterlogged, then they are dragged on to the island and potatoes and other veggies are planted in them.
After the reed islands we motor out to an island called Taquille, about 3 hours further out. The sky is incredibly clear and blue and I take off my shirt and sunbake on the deck.
Tacquille is an island about 5km by 1km and looks for all the world like a Greek or Italian island - steep, rocky cliffs, terraces with stone fences, winding paths,flowers and trees, and is surrounded by a blue sea (except this is a lake), and with snow mountains in the background - incredibly picturesque. We climb up the steep steps from the jetty and there's a lot of puffing and panting going on because of unfitness and the altitude.
The people here are completely different to those on the mainland and the reed islands, in looks, clothes and customs. The men wear colourful woven caps - if it's half white it means they're unmarried. From the age of around 13-14 boys knit their caps and it's quite common to see a teenage boy walking up steep steps and knitting his cap at the same time - yes, these boys can multi-task. They also wear black trousers, with a wide, woven cummerbund, white shirts, and a black and white vest - all in all they look very smart and handsome.
The women wear brightly coloured skirts and long black shawls on their heads, and they wear some coloured thing around their necks to signify if they are married or not.
We stop at a restaurant on top of the island and have lunch in the open under a canopy, then our guide explains the island customs in a calm and thorough way - he is obviously proud of them. He shows us the various items of dress, most of which have little pockets built into them, and asks us what these would be used for. If you couldn't guess, which I didn't, they carry coca leaves with them all the time and use it to chew on or make tea.
We wander back to the boat and chug gently across the lake - the late afternoon light is beautiful as we weave our way down the channel between the reeds back to Puno.
A light meal, then into the bus for the night trip back to Cusco, which arrives at 5 in the morning - another night with very little sleep.
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