Puno and Titikaka Lake

Puno is a region of Peru, situated at 3,827 meters (12,500 feet) a.s.l. its population is around 100,000 inhabitants in the city, on the banks or Titicaca or Titikaka Lake, it is as well the world highest navigable lake - displays the reminiscences of its origin through cave paintings and spearheads, testimony of our highland ancestor's life. The Collao Plateau; this Is the geographical place where ancient and Important cultures like Pucara and, the later Tiahuanaco, appeared. During colonial times, the spaniards established In Puno attracted by its mineral richness, bringing new cultural, social and economic Patterns along. The city of San Carlos de Puno and was founded in 1668.

 

Titicaca Lake:

 

The Titicaca lake, is the world's highest navigable lake and the center of a region where thousands of subsistence farmers eke out a living fishing in its icy waters, growing potatoes in the rocky land at its edge or herding llama and alpaca at altitudes that leave Europeans and North Americans gasping for air. It is also where traces of the rich natives past still stubbornly cling, resisting in past centuries the Spanish invaders aggressive campaign to erase Inca and pre-Inca cultures. And, In recent times, the lure of modernization. When Peruvians talk of turquoise blue Titicaca, they proudly note that it is so large it has waves, and considered sacred since ancient times. now the separation between Peru and Bolivia, has a surface area exceeding 8,000 square kilometers (3,100 square miles), not counting its more than 30 islands.

 

At 3,856 meters (12,725 feet) above sea level it has two climates: chilly and rainy or chilly and dry. In the evenings it becomes quite cold, dropping below freezing from May through August. In the day, the sun is intense and sunburn is common. Oceanographer Jacques Yves Cousteau spent eight weeks using mini submarines to explore the depths of the lake but found no gold. (What he did discover, to the amazement of the scientific world, was a 60-centimeter (24-in) long, tri-colored frog that apparently never surfaces!).

 

The urban base.

Puno is located on the Peruvian side, an unattractive commercial center settled as a Spanish community in 1668 by the Count of Lemos. Although today Puno seems unappealing, during the Spanish period it was one of the continent's richest cities because of its proximity to the Laykakota silver mines discovered by brothers Gaspar and Jose Salcedo in 1657. The mining boom drew 10,000 people to an area not far from what is now Puno. It also brought a bloody rivalry that ended only when the ironhanded count traveled to Puno, ordered Jose Salcedo executed and transferred Laykakota's residents.

 

Puno is still Peru's the altiplano capital - the harsh highland region much better suited to roaming vicuñas and alpacas than to people. It is also Peru's folklore center with a rich array of handicrafts, costumes, holidays, legends and, most importantly, more than 300 ethnic dances Within Puno, there remain a handful of buildings worth seeing. The cathedral is a magnificent stone structure dating back to 1757 with a weather-beaten baroque-style exterior and a surprisingly Spartan interior- except for its center altar of carved marble, which is plated in silver.

 

Tour Programs “exploring the lake”.

Puno is the stepping-off point for exploring Titicaca with its amazing array of islands, Native inhabitants and colorful traditions. Small motorboats can be hired for lake trips or for catching the 13kg (30lb) lake trout that make it one of Peru's best-known fishing destinations. Most of the transportation is either by motorized launches or the totora reed boats that Norwegian Thor Heyerdahl studied in preparing for his legendary 4,300-nautical mile (7,970-km) journey from Peru to Polynesia in the reed boat Kon-Tiki in the 1940s.

 

Floating islands “Uros”.

The best-known of the islands are dotting Titicaca surface Uros. Floating islands of reed named after the Natives who inhabited them. Legend has it the Uros Natives had black blood that helped them to survive the frigid nights on the water and safeguarded them from drowning. The last full-blooded Uros was a woman who died in 1959. Other Uros had left the group of islands in earlier years owing to a drought that worsened their poverty - and intermarried with Aymará and Quechua-speaking Natives. They fish, hunt birds and they use the reeds for their houses, boats and even as the base of their five islands - the largest of which are Toranipata, Huaca Huacani and Santa Maria. The bottoms of the reed islands decay in the water and are replaced from the top with new layers, making a spongy surface that is a bit difficult to walk on.

 

Taquile

Taquile is the name of a lake which is home of skilled weavers and a spot where travelers can buy wellmade woolen and alpaca goods as well as colorful garments whose patterns and designs bear hidden messages about the wearer's social standing or marital status. The residents of this island run their own tourism operations in the hope that visits of outsiders will not destroy their delicate culture. There are no hotels on Taquile but the islanders generously open their homes to tourists interested in an overnight stay.

 

Amantani

Handicrafts also play an important role in life on Amantani, a lovely and peaceful island even further away from Puno than Taquile. Amantani was once part of the Inca empire, as attested to by local ruins, before the Spanish invaded and slaughtered the islanders. The Spaniard who was granted a concession to the island used the Indians in forced labor and his descendants were still in control after Peru's independence from Spain. But eventually an island fiesta turned violent and the Indians attacked their landlord with hoes and consequently split up the island into communally-held fields.

 

Amantani Island.

Its doors are opened to outsiders who are willing to live for a few days as the Aymará-speaking islanders do -and that means sleeping on beds made of long hard reeds and eating potatoes for every meal. There is no running water or electricity and nighttime temperatures drops to freezing even in the summer. Some Amantaní residents live and die without ever leaving the island.

 

Journeys to Amantaní begin at Puno docks aboard sputtering wooden motorboats operated by the islanders. At the end of the four-hour trip, visitors are registered as guests and assigned to a host family. The family, usually led by a shy patriarch, shows the way to its mud-brick home set around an open courtyard decorated with white pebbles spelling out the family's name.

Prepared visitors usually bring gifts of fruit -a rarity on the isolated island and the socializing begins when a family member who speaks English offers a guided walk around the island, from where the views are something spectacular. Women wearing traditional black and white lace dresses pass by with Slingshots in their hands to kill scavenging birds.

 

Esteves Island.

Esteves is connected to Puno by a bridge, well known because of its luxurious hotel and it is a far cry from what was used to be the main construction on the island - a prison that accommodated the patriots captured by the Spanish during Peru's war for independence.

 

 

Chullpas de Sillustani: Mysterious burial chambers:

At About 35 km (21 miles) from Puno, is located Sillustani, with its circular burial towers or chullpas overlooking Umayo lake. The age of the funeral towers, which are up to 12 meters (40 feet) high, remains a puzzle. A Spanish chronicle-keeper described them as "recently finished" in 1549, although some still appear as if they were never completed and the natives that built them were conquered by the Incas about a century earlier. The chullpas apparently were used as burial chambers for nobles of the Colla civilization; these were antives who spoke Aymara, who buried their nobility with their entire family.

 

Not far away is Chucuito, a village that sits upon what was once an Inca settlement and which boasts an Inca sundial. Stop by the Santo Domingo Church with its small museum in this altiplano village; also worth visiting is La Asuncion Church.

 

Copacabana can also be reached by taking a minibus rid around the side of the lake, passing the reeds waving in the wind, shy but curious children at the bends in the road and always the brilliant blue of Titicaca or the roadway that ends the lake.