From Colca to Puno

The trip from Colca to Puno took 5 hours. Driving back to Arequipa would have taken 3.5 hours, so it made sense to continue to Puno by land and enjoy the wonderful scenery of the Andes. We drove back 2 hours to the Arequipa-Puno highway (with more shopping by Mark along the way) and then continued east 3 hours to Puno. We saw more alpacas, vicunas and llamas. We crossed the Andes at about 14,000 ft. of altitude. From this point rivers flow both ways, west to the Pacific and east to the Amazon and the Atlantic. Actually, it is around this highest point that the Urubamba river gets formed from ice glaciers. This river goes East all the way along most of the Sacred Valley of the Incas.

We passed several little towns. In one of these towns they had a beautiful small church and locals with an eagle and little llama for pictures. Lynn and Mike couldn't resist (see picture). We then arrived to Juliaca where the train station and airport are located. Juliaca is a busy commercial town and the traffic was a bit heavy because of the Juliaca-Puno highway construction project.


We finally arrived into Puno and were able to see the small houses all over the hill. We also saw far away the Steves Island where the El Libertador Hotel is located (see picture). This hotel is over 30 years old (used to be the Hotel de Turistas -- a government run chain) and every room has a breathtaking view of the Titicaca Lake and some rooms also have a view of the city lights which is very pretty at night. The hotel is beautiful and it is impecably run by Alberto's nephew Luis.

Mike and Delphine posed for a picture and Luis greeted us with pisco sours, typical hors deuvres and a bottle of premium pisco in each of the suite rooms he reserved for us.