When: Day 11 and 12
Location: Puno and Lake Titicaca
Hotel: Casona Plaza Hotel http://www.casonaplazahotel.com/
Location: Puno and Lake Titicaca
Hotel: Casona Plaza Hotel http://www.casonaplazahotel.com/
After a full day of travelling in a van, we finally got to our hotel in Puno. Casona Plaza hotel is one of the better hotels we stayed in Peru. They have very nice bathroom, I know because I spent plenty of time there. That day, Nov 5, happened to be Puno Day, a local holiday. There was a parade in the streets, and our hotel was right in the middle of it. Too bad that it was all noise to me while I was resting in our hotel room. All other people went out to watch the parade and had dinner.
Apparently not all rooms have functional cable TV, but ours was working fine. I was basically watching English TV in my bed the whole evening; Law and Order, CSI, Gilmore Girls, House. But I was so sick I was considering staying in hotel room for the rest of the trip. Thanks to Vince, I got plenty of water and a little bit to eat, although I wasn’t really able to eat. Fortunately, I felt good enough to get out of the room the next morning; I was a little worried with the idea of sitting in a boat for a few hours.
Floating Reed Islands of Uros
First place we visited in Lake Titicaca was the floating islands. While it is true that the Uros still live on these floating islands, the ones we visited felt more like floating souvenir stands. I guess those are set up specifically for tourists, a good demostration on how these islands float. There was a stand with a post box, for people to get postcards and to sent them. I think Tyatt got one to sent to her folks, but I’m not sure if they ever got it.
Taquile Island
After the visit to the floating island, we headed to the Taquile Island. It’s about two hours of boat ride, kinda gives you an idea how big Lake Titicaca is. The island is famous for high quality handicrafts. It’s interesting that it’s the men there do the knitting, not the women (or weren’t allowed?) Everyone except me bought quite a bit of stuff there. But I like the landscape there the most, it is just different from all other places we visited in Peru. I felt I was inside of a nice piece of painting. Although there wasn’t really much to do there, I think it’s worth the time to make this trip.
