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. 

Peru day 6 - Sun Route on our travel day from Cusco to Puno

 Sun route 

We left Cusco at 6am with a bus trip from Cusco to Puno. When I booked the trip, my intention was just a relaxing way to go from Cusco to see lake Titicaca. 

6 hours car ride from Cusco to Lake Titicaca, which took us 12 in the bus with the stops

What i didn't realize is we are on a famous sun route and what we learned during the trip surprised me. 

https://rutadelbarrocoandino.com/en/

First is we got to the bus terminal at 610am!

And our guide is Matthias and it's a really nice bus with free wifi, free coffee and bathroom! 

The super nice bus in this tour!

Matthias stop at a place along the way to get a super big bread for us to share by tearing off a piece. It's yummy but certainly not individual portion =)

The Andean bread Pan Chuta

San Pedro Apostol de Andahuaylilas

Our first stop is reputed to be the Sistine chapel of South America! 

The surprising church San Pedro Apostol in our tour

Photos are not allowed so I can only paste the picture of the Youtube video capture of the link above. 

The Sistine Chapel of South America! 

Officially we are leaving Cusco and MP and going to towns that's away from the Inca main powerhouse but still governed by locals/Incas. The little town where this church is located where silver are mined and transported to other towns, which is why it's so wealthy to justify a church of this complex design by the Jesuits. The Dominicans came and put gold over the Jesuits stone walls with murals. The revival of the Jesuits happneed but they are not allowed to remove the gold. Hence the church is preserved with all the tacky gold. 

While MP never did human sacrifice nor do they have a God (other than the Sun, Moon and Pachamama Earth), the locals do have a god and a local language which they kept secret. The Spanish never understood the local God which is the superior secretive god. They kept thinking it's the sun that is getting worshipped and the church tried to incorporate the sun element. 

But the Jesuits figured it out and documented the sacred God and language and preserved that information for discovery later. 

Parque Arqueologico De Raqchi 

We ended at a agricultural area call Raqchi and it's speculated to be storage of the products as it's in the crossroad of Cusco to Puno. 

Storage ruins during Inca times

And there's speculation of this temple ruins being the temple of the real God that people really worshipped but kept quiet 

. 

The secretive Wiracocha that is the real god

Really colorful Andean wares in Raqchi

After that we stopped for lunch with a typical Andean buffet again. 

La Raya Pass 

We got to the high plains at 5500 meters and got out of there quickly after a picture. 

This is the Apu Chimboya pass at 5500 meters

Glacier at the pass

Museo Litica Pukara

Our next stop is a museum where he showed the time line of the history of the area where Inca is just a small part  of the history. 

The local timeline where Inca only has 100 years out of 1400!

The Inca spoke the Pukara language. He also explained the Pre-Inca times where the locals are doing  human sacrifices and war, and catfish significance to those times 

The Pre Inca relics

Also, the Puchara town is famous for bulls ceramics that protects the houses of the locals that you can find on top of all the houses in Peru. 

Ceramic bulls designs

Also, the museum has a coffee shop that has the equivalent of civet coffee for sale. We saw that in San Pedro church area but got to taste it here

The equivalent of Civet coffee in Peru

I also took some pics of this creature and finally had it explained by Diana in Arequipa that it's a guardian to protect against their souls being stolen in the mines. It can be a dragon, a cat etc etc. And has hands that's extended outwards! 

The creature that we saw everywhere! 

We finally got to Puno around 7pm. Checked into hotel Casa Andina and went for dinner at a square that we could walk to. What surprised me was Puno is higher than Cusco! So we still have to deal with the high altitude for a while longer. 

Casa Andina room in Puno

Simple dinner at Puno at Tulipa

Another thing I learned in this trip is the Andean cross. What it really represents is the high plains as they really go higher and higher before they go lower (just like us crossing the high plains before going lower to Puno) 

Andean cross

Peru day 5- Day 2 of Inca trail

 Machu Picchu (MP)

The best view on the ruins!

Another view of MP

Today is the day that we explore the ruins with Edy. 

The group left the hotel at 7am as the bus line is shorter. It is a golden interval between folks trying to catch sun rise at MP and the arrival of trains from Ollantaytambo

Joining the bus queue and getting on circuit 3

The ruins as we approach circuit 3

We had a full 2 hours with Edy showing us the ruins and explaining how the Spanish never found Machu Picchu. The Spanish ambushed the Inca king at the last gate and they never revealed where they got the gold and silver that the Spanish were after. So Spaniards never discovered MP. 

It was discovered by Hiram Bingham who is looking for it actively after knowing the last gate events and a recording of a sacred place for Inca. But it turns out he's not the first person who discovered it. The person who bought the land actually found it but didn't understand the significance of the site.

View of MP now vs when it was first discovered

Getting baked by the sun!

MP can be easily shrouded in the mist and fog created by the mountains range surrounding it. And only the Inca royal visited this sacred site and it's supported by a few hundred people and kept very quiet and inaccessible to most folks. 

They think that the cusco scouts came to inform the king of the Spanish invasion and brought diseases. Hence the Pachamama tombs has bodies that's not mummified as they realized they are infectious

So the city likely got abandoned. It's not clear where the gold went, but likely looted or moved. 

A lot of gold hunters are digging around the mountains around MP as the treasures were never discovered. 

More views of MP

More views of MP 

The water system has built in filtering with the groovesand we can see the water still running in them. We can also see evidence of rocks still being moved and it's still actively being built when they abandoned it

Water system with built in filtering

Edy also explained how the sun temple is built where they figured out where they can see the sun goes between Sun Gate to the mountain on the opposite side and how it tracks between summer and winter solstice. That is why the Sungate was created with the alignment to the Sun temple

Edy explaining how the Sun Temple works

 

We were just there yesterday! 

The Sun Temple has very high quality stones that is merged perfectly. And the King has access to doors and a bedroom and a kitchen that has stones that might be used for rituals. 

Door to Sun temple

The King chamber

He also showed the King's seating area 

Showing how the Inca king use this chamber 

The Condor temple area has niches that are used to store mummified bodies. The innards of the bodies are removed and placed for condors to feed as they believe that brings the bodies closer to heaven. Condors, Pumas and Snakes are the 3 sacred animals for the Incas.

This was used as a niche for mummified bodies

We completed the Circuit 3 tour with Edy after 2 hours and we got out of MP. It's a one way path to get through the circuit and it leads to the bus station where we got the bus back to Agua caliente. 

Our bonded group with celebratory lunch after seeing MP! 

Lunch with guinea pig and alpaca 

After lunch we have some free time to wander around Agua Caliente

Views of the town 

Agua Caliente town 

We have the 430pm Vista Dome train. Edy gave us the train tickets and instructions on how to find the train station as he's off for another tour and Miguel has another train schedule that's cheaper. The 430pm Vista Dome train is a dog and pony show with snacks, fashion show and even a dance show in the bar. We skipped the bar as we were chatting with a group of 5 guys who did the 5 Day Inca Trail which is the 4 day + the Huanipichu hike.  

That's the young mountain beside MP that has monkey steps almost all the way and the moon temple is on that mountain. 

Chaos in the train station

"Free" snacks

Priceless views again! 

Fashion shows on the train with Alpaca garments

We were chatting with them on their experience with the Alpaca company. It's crazy that the porters are carrying a portable potty for them for 4 days! As you can't leave anything in the trails! 

Miguel met us at Ollanyantambu and we rode back to Cusco for 2 hours and reach around 930pm. We checked into our previous hotel again for the night. 

In our hotel room for the last night at Cusco

We ate at Campo by Morena. Pretty good but not as polished as Chicha. Also their salt level is slightly high and Bill didn't get his meal as our waitress is quite inexperienced. 

Decent dinner at Morena Campo