October 1, 2024 - Colca to Puno, Peru

Yes, we had a 5:00am wake up call ... but I was already awake since I didn't sleep much last night. I HATE nights like that! Tobey usually doesn't have that trouble, so I am happy for him! After breakfast we took a few minutes to take pictures around the hotel. Just outside the dining room is an enclosure with ducks and a couple peacocks.

We were in the light orange building between the blue and pink on the second level.

We walked up to catch our van into town and were on our way at 6:30 this morning. It is hard to describe, but it has several switchbacks and is barely more than one lane!

We did get a good view of the volcano spouting steam. When we first saw it, the steam almost looked like the neck and head of a llama. Unfortunately, I was on the WRONG side of the van to get that picture!

We had some nice views of the old terraces as we were on our way.

Our first stop was in Chivay so we could pick up our box lunches from our lunch stop from yesterday. We had a few minutes to watch the dancers in the square - and it was early - only 7am!

Back on our bus, we had a LONG, LONG day on our way to Puno. From the hotel it is about 190 miles, but takes over five hours. Compounding that problem was road construction that we had to beat before they closed the highway. Along the way, our tour manager, Washington, gave us more history of the area and the Andean culture which actually predates the Incas. He then played a video that was a documentary about an archeologist and their trek and discovery of one of the frozen mummies. It was quite interesting.

We then had lots of seat and window time to enjoy the scenery, including a couple bathroom breaks along the way.
Terraced areas and enclosures for livestock. We also saw areas with lots of trash along the roads.

Different rock formations


Colorful Andes Mountains

We were soon at the road construction zone. We had to queue up and wait for our turn to go and followed a line of vehicles similar to the one that we faced. You can see just some of the trucks and cars coming toward us!

We did see lots of vicunas, llamas, and alpacas today, too.

As we were going by the group of vicunas below, we watched one of them go belly-down into the water to cool off!

Llamas and alpacas

We stopped for lunch at Mirador Lagunillas for our box lunches at an elevation of 14,478 feet! The lunch was delicious and the view was amazing.


There were sheep and alpacas all around and these two little ones followed their "mama" all around!

Yes, I'm cute!

We enjoyed the break and being able to stretch and walk around before getting back on the road. Our driver had a break in traffic which allowed for a brief stop to shoot pictures of flamingos in Lake Lagunillas.

The next 2-1/2 hours were miserable for us. A movie was shown on the bus and the sound was so loud, I spent the rest of the time with my hands over my ears. I was very thankful when it ended. We finally arrived at our hotel, the GHL Hotel Lago Titicaca, which is located on the lake. If you look at the picture below, the hotel is the flat white building on the left side by the lake.
This is the view from our room.

Sunset on the west side of the hotel.

Sunset

Dinner tonight was at the hotel. My dessert was yummy - mango pie.

We get a late start tomorrow - 8:30 ready to leave the hotel so we are looking forward to "sleeping in".