Day 9 & 10 – Puno’s pureness

Poor readers! You had to miss your daily 3min of reading fun yesterday… That was simply because we hadn’t had much to tell that day. Quality is key, isn’t it? So yesterday morning we left our favourite little village Pisac behind to head back to Cusco where we were going to take the bus to Puno.

The seats in the bus where massive, what a luxury! We were really looking forward to just sit still and relax for 7 hours. We have been traveling around with our 1 million bags like crazy people the past few days. So armed with again not enough food and not enough water we would just sit back, relax and enjoy the amazing scenery & view.

That’s the thing about driving long distances in a foreign, beautiful country; it’s just a pleasure, it never gets boring.  We got up to 4300m+ where we saw the most stunning glaciers.  Great surprise since I didn’t expect seeing any!  Too bad it was a direct bus so we weren’t able to go out and breathe in that cold, fresh air. Hmm would have been nice!

So about 7 hours later, completely dehydrated and starved (since the Sweeds next to us didn’t wanted to share any of their survival kit food with us, darned!), we arrived in Puno! Puno is located pretty high up, namely at around 3800m above sea level, so it was pretty chilly I must say! One bag of chips and another bag of dried salty corn later we started to become humane again: food! Dear lord…

After a few dodgy hostels we were happily surprised to enter our new ‘home’ for the next 2 nights: Sol Plaza. What a luxury! Staff carrying our bags to our room, an elevator, a bath, … Nice! Happy campers we were! So after a satisfying shower we headed into the little town to find a cosy please to eat. We had a lovely vegetable curry and our first Pisco sour near the fire place, in Dutch I’d say: ‘Hoe gezellig!’.

Off to bed, early! Really early… 9.30PM. A good midnight rest would do us well! But apparently the altitude makes you have the scariest nightmares and the creasiest dreams. So, we didn’t sleep much. But no worries, one hell of a breakfast later we were all set to discover Lake Titicaca’s most beautiful islands! Since we don’t really see our selves as tourists (which we clearly do are, haha!) we were a bit sceptic about joining an organised trip to the Uros (floating) islands and Taguille. We only had 1 day to see as much as possible of the highest lake on the entire planet.

So we melted in with the flow of tourists, and, to be honest, it wasn’t that bad after all. We had such a great guide, mister Clever (yes!), a local from Puno who told us everything that we wanted to know about the history of these beautiful islands, and so much more. It’s a 40min boat drive to the first islands, namely the Uros islands. These beautiful floating islands have been hand built by the locals and it is in fact a real community that lives there. Stunning. But we’re not sure how much of it is really reality and how much is just there to please the tourists …

After some heavy rain we headed towards the 2nd island: Taquille. It took us another 2,5 hour drive before we arrived there. But my lord, was it more than worth it! I think it’s one of the most beautiful sceneries I have ever seen so far. Breath-taking. On top of that Taquille is elected by Unesco for its beautiful handcraft. So… What did I do? Yes… I scored another 2 amazing unique hand-woven typical Peruvian vests and a modest, lovely woven scarf. I think I will have to check in an extra bag at KLM’s for all my souvenirs… It’s just all so pretty and o-so cheap! Paradise for me and my knit-crochet-woven items addiction.

After the more than successful shopping, we and our tourist groups were invited for an amazing lunch with an even more amazing view on the lake. A gentle kurkuma-quinoa-vegetable soup as a starter, followed by a super gentle, soft, grilled trout with rice and a small salad. HEAVEN! After our delicious lunch we headed back to our boat for a 3hour drive in the sun back to Puno. I even got a tan, what about that!

Puno, Lake titicaca, there is still so much more to discover… Unfortunately we only had 1 day here. Tomorrow we’re heading back to Lima since on Sunday we’re flying to Ayacucho where all the LN knitting magic will happen. The end of our ‘exploration’ trip through Peru will end tomorrow. From Sunday on will be still feeding you with some amazing pictures and stories all linked to my two beautiful projects/brands namely LN|Andes and LN|Beanies.

Time for some action!

First another series of nightmares at 3800m+.

Buenos noches!

LN