Cusco to Puno and the beautiful Lake Titicaca – Day 3

Cusco to Puno and the beautiful Lake Titicaca – Day 3 | February 1, 2012

The route to Puno, a small town on the banks of Lake Titicaca, is set to be a relaxed ride of roughly 400 km (250 mi.) mostly on paved roads and beautiful mountain views. We started the day with a slight rain that cleared later to a sunny and cold day, as we were climbing up in elevation.

White snow dusted mountain ranges and dramatic cloudy sky kept the ride once again breath-taking. We were on a roll to get to Puno by lunch, since we had a surprise tour for the group on Lake Titicaca and a visit to the Floating Reed islands on the lake. On the way, we have crossed Juliaca, later renamed by Cliff as “Shit City”, which provided us with some of the more challenging dirt road riding experience of the trip to date. The town was a traffic mess, dirt, potholes and mud puddles in the streets, and chaos like nobody business. The local gas stations were actually a lady sitting at a cross-road, with 4 or 5 plastic containers and a funnel. If you were lucky, they had a piece of filthy cloth in the funnel to filter the dirt out of the gasoline. We managed to avoid using their services and opted for a gas station along the way several miles out-of-town.

Once in Puno, a quick-lunch and on to the boat that took us to the floating islands. The captain’s son, a 9 year old boy was driving the boat. We got a full tourist intro to the islands and were shown around by one of the families that lives on an island. We did the obligatory trip in a reed boat and even got to experience rowing it.

It was great! the people were wonderful and it is something we will probably will not have an opportunity to experience anytime soon.

We had dinner at the hotel with Lama stew, Lama Carpaccio, grilled fish and other local delicacies and went to bed early. Tomorrow, day 4, is an 800 km day (500 mi) with a boarder crossing from Peru to Bolivia. We also had prediction for rain. Talking about a perfect storm…