14-Apr-2012 Puno, Peru
The wake-up call is set at 5:00am but at 4:30am I’m up. By 5:30am everyone’s having breakfast and by 6:30am we’re on our way to a 10 hour bus journey to Puno to visit Lake Titicaca.
Our first stop is a colonial church in Andahuaylillas. This is the 16th Cathedral built in South America. It has an extensive altar adorned with gold. Once again, this church is built over an Inca Site. Then we stopped at Raqchi where a large Inka wall made up of stone on the bottom and mud bricks on top standing over 20 meters. It is surrounded by an Inca Terrace that is still being irrigated and used for produce to date.
We stopped for lunch in Sicuani in a restaurant called Canchis 11
We stopped briefly for photos at La Raya at the highest peak of the highway – 4335 meters. We took photos with the glaziers of the Andes Ranges as the backdrop.
Our next stop is the pre-Inca museum in Pukara. The Pukarese lived between 1200BC to about 2BC. An active archaeological site is still off limits to the public. Some symbols and practices by the Incas can be traced to this ancient civilisation.
As we entered Puno, one would notice that most houses look like they are still under construction. The guide explained that the citizens are doing this on purpose as taxes for houses that are yet to be completed are lower. It makes the city skyline very unattractive, another example of bureaucracy gone mad.
Recent Comments