Peru day 7 - Puno and Lake Titicaca

 Puno and lake Titicaca 

Plaza Mayor in Puno

Lake Titicaca!

We have a day in Puno to explore the town and lake Titicaca.I like the name Titicaca when I first saw it 😁 and Bill said it's the largest and highest navigable body of fresh water. So we decide to spend a couple of nights here even though it's super touristy. 

We both decide we are not visiting the Uros which is a man-made area that shows floating island emulating how folks used to live in Puno. It just seems to cheesy that we are both ok to skip it. 

It's also a good reset in the trip to do laundry while walking around town

So bright and early we had breakfast at the hotel which has a great spread. 

Hotel breakfast

We hop into a motor taxi with our dirty laundry and left it with the laundromat to collect the same day at 7pm. 

Our Motor taxi experience

After dropping off the laundry, we walked to Plaza Mayor and started walking towards the lake.

Saw a local market and was amazed by the bags of huge and colorful produce

The local market and produce

We walked to the lake and went on the Malacon 

Lake Titicaca

View of Puno from the Malacon

We walked to the Sonesta hotel which housed an old exhibit boat. But we decide not to go into the dinghy 😁Bill was doubtful if it will not sink =) 

The precarious dinghy

Instead we got a coffee and sat at the hotel backyard and took pics of guinea pigs and alpacas while enjoying the view of the lake

Enjoying a coffee at Sonesta backyard

The hotel has a couple of black alpacas which is very rare. Only 1% of them are black and they are very expensive. 90% are cream colored as they are favored for easy coloring, 9% is brown and 1% is black. We were told during MP that they sacrificed the black ones. That's why they are tough to find now. 

Black Alpacas and guinea pigs to play with

After that we took a taxi back to the hotel and found a money exchanger in town to get more sols before getting on a motor taxi to try to get close to the mirador. Unfortunately we were drop off at the bottom of the stairs and had to climb up. 

The mirador climb

Puno is at 3200 meters and climbing up the Mirador was quite challenging for me but we made it

Had some shaky legs when we climb down! 

View from the Mirador

After that we had to Plaza mayor and had pizza and sangria for lunch. 

Pizzco Pizza lunch in town 

We went into the main church in plaza mayor and she told us to come back and climb the bell tower at night!

Impressive church in Puno

 

We walked back to the hotel and returned at 6pm but it was mass time and to return at 7pm. 

And after collecting our clean laundry and putting into the hotel, it started raining. So we abandoned the plan to go back to the church but stayed at the hotel instead and call it a night.