Heading to Peru via Lake Titicaca – Copacabana & Puno

We had to head up to Peru to meet the girls in Cusco so we decided to take a route along Lake Titicaca via Copacabana in Bolivia, then across the border into Puno, Peru. Then from Puno we would head straight to Cusco.

Copacabana was a nice little town on the lake, we stayed here for 2 nights and did a trip out to Isla Del Sol on one of the days. Isla del Sol is central to the Inca’s beliefs that the sun created everything. The Sun (Sol in Spanish) god was apparently born out of a rock here on Isla del Sol!! They pointed to a rock and told us that was were the sun god came from… They could have picked any rock really!! There were places for sacrifice, ancient stones that were some other gods and much more info to tell!! We got a bit over the rock gods though and were just there to appreciate the view really.
Copacabana - Bolivia

Lake Titicaca is the largest lake in South America and the highest navigable lake in the world because of it’s size. The lake is at 3,812masl. We caught a boat to the North of Isla del Sol and walked across the island over 4,000masl and 7km to the South of the island. The landscape was beautiful and the views very nice, it’s a bit of a tourist trap though. There were points along the walk, in the middle of no where, where a guy would be standing there and collecting an entrance fee to walk into his community. Apparently the fees went to the communities, but there was no way of knowing before you went on the walk that it was going to cost you a couple of dollars at each point on the island to get through. But oh well… they were onto it!!
Isla Del Sol

At the South end of Isla del Sol were a heap of hostals and restaurants. This was the prettiest part of the island and it would be worth just getting onto the island here and walking up the hill to see the views. We stopped for a yummy lunch, then back on the boat back to Copacabana. Isla del Sol

The next day we headed a couple of hours North and crossed the border into Peru. We stopped in Puno overnight. Puno is famous for the floating rafts made of straw that people built and live on. We visited a family on the rafts and they dressed us in their traditional clothes and sold us some of their hand made things. We went to a restaurant out there too and had some nice trout! They have to constantly put more straw on the rafts… and cooking food is a little dangerous out there! But they have it sorted putting their fire and pots on slate.

Floating rafts in Puno

Next it was the 8-9 hour trip up to Cusco.

Timeframe: 4 October – 7 October 2013


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