A less hectic day of Candeleria celebrations greeted us in Puno today; we spent the morning wandering up to the massive Inca statue at the top of the town, with great views around the bay of Lake Titicaca that puno is situated in , then caught a great procession featuring people in traditional dress and playing traditional instruments like massive pan-pipes that stretched down to the ground, a welcome change from the now ubiquitious and constant brass bands. There were even a couple of gringos in the traditional bands, which all were attached to cultural clubs – we were stationed outside the main church, and interestingly some of the bands stopped and bowed in front of this while others – notably made up of Quechan/indigenous people didn’t.
Dancers posing for us in Puno
Long pan pipes
The Virgen makes an appearance
and makes her way down the street
A face in the crowd
After lunch we headed down to the port and onto our local boat for the tour to the floating Islands of Uros. A really cool concept, where villagers actually lived on floating islands constructed from the reeds which were abundant in that part of the lake, constructing boats, buildings, bridges and lookout towers as well as “solid” ground out of the reeds.
Laur on the way to the floating reed islands
boats and the reed islands
Unfortunately it had degenerated into a bit of a tourist trap and felt quite inauthentic – Laura even heard rumours that people from the mainland would come over and pretend to be floating island villagers for the day, then head back once the tours were over, and I believed this. They’d even hung out fake washing to make it look inhabited! The engine on the public boat we were on kept breaking down, but it was still a nice jaunt and the lake looked lovely
Gathering the reeds
Safe cooking on the reed islands
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