Puno - Titicaca Lake

Lake Titicaca

Lake Titicaca–In Andean belief, Titicaca is the birthplace of the sun. In addition, it’s the largest lake in South America and the highest navigable body of water in the world. Banner blue skies contrast with bitterly cold nights. Enthralling and in many ways singular, the shimmering deep blue Lake Titicaca is the longtime home of highland cultures steeped in the old ways.
Pre-Inca Pukara, Tiwanaku and Collas all left a mark on the landscape. Today the region is a mix of crumbling cathedrals, desolate altiplano and checkerboard fields backed by rolling hills and high Andean peaks. In this world, crops are still planted and harvested by hand. Campesinos (peasants) wear sandals recycled from truck tires, women work in petticoats and bowler hats, and llamas are tame as pets. The Uros Floating Islands — where Andean communities consisting of just a few families construct tiny islands out of totora reeds. It might at first appear austere, but ancient holidays are marked with riotous celebrations where elaborately costumed processions and brass bands start a frenzy that lasts for days.

Country	Peru
Visa requirements	Yes
Languages spoken	Spanish, Quechua, Aymara
Currency used	PEN
Area (km2)	66997 km²

Sports & nature

Sight-seeing, boating, made for nature lovers, culture lovers. Sports and nature image

Nightlife info

While staying on Amantani island at night you are very well dressed with autochthon usage by a local family to participate in a typical celebration which is made by the local inhabitants to welcome the travellers where you can have some beers and other drinks. Though the city is the country's capital of folklore, there's not a whole lot happening in Puno after dark. Outside of festivals, nightlife is pretty much confined to a single street, consisting of a handful of bars and discos strung along (or just off) the pedestrian mall, Jirón Lima. A cozy and cool hangout with a loft space, it looks like a graffiti-filled mountain cabin and serves excellent cocktails to a young, gregarious clientele (with occasional live rock music). Along Jirón Lima itself, and the reggae themed in positive vibrations Nightlife image

Culture and history info

Puno, founded in the late 17th century following the discovery of nearby silver mines, is a ramshackle town that draws numbers of visitors wholly disproportionate to its innate attractions. A mostly unlovely city on the altiplano, a high, wind-swept plateau, it has one thing going for it that no other place on earth can claim: Puno hugs the shores of fabled Lake Titicaca, the world's highest navigable body of water, a sterling expanse of deep blue at 3,830m (12,566 ft.) above sea level. South America's largest lake (8,500 sq. km/3,282 sq mi.), Titicaca is also the largest lake in the world above 2,000m (6,560 ft.). The magnificent lake straddles the border of Peru and Bolivia; many Andean travelers move on from Puno to La Paz, going around or, in some cases, over Lake Titicaca. Before leaving Puno, though, almost everyone hops aboard a boat to visit at least one of several ancient island-dwelling peoples that seem to have materialized straight out of the pages of National Geographic. A 2-day tour takes travelers to the Uros Floating Islands, where Andean communities consisting of just a few families construct tiny islands out of totora reeds, and two inhabited natural islands, Amantaní and Taquile, where their people who have lived since immemorial time, they remain starkly traditional. Quechua and Aymara-speaking residents work the fields with primitive tools , sail the lake with primeval caballitos de totora (reed boat), and harvest crops with methods unchanged since the days of the Incas. To many Peruvians, Lake Titicaca is a mystical and sacred place. Manco Cápac, the original Inca chieftain believed to be a direct descendant of the sun, is said to have risen from the lake's waters along with his sister to found the Inca Empire. The Uros Indians might remain on their floating islands because they believe themselves to be lake people by birth, the very descendants of the royal siblings. Puno has one other thing in its favor. Though dry and often brutally cold, the city is celebrated for its spectacular festivals, veritable explosions of cultura popular. The unassuming town, where locals largely descended from the Aymara from the south and the Quechua from the north, reigns as the capital of Peruvian folklore. Its traditional fiestas, dances, and music, and consequent street partying are without argument among the most vibrant and uninhibited in Peru. Among those worth planning a trip around are February's Festival de la Virgen de la Candelaria (Candlemas) and Puno Week, celebrating the birth of the city and the Inca Empire, in early November. Culture and history image