Peru - The Rough Guide to South America on a Budget - page 778

ACCOMMODATION AND EATING
La Casa de Santiago T 054 203 737, W lacasadesantiago
.com. This calm little oasis with clean and tidy rooms has a
verdant garden with hammocks a nd w onderful vie ws over
the surrounding mountains. Dorms S15 , doubles S50
Pachamama T 054 767 277, W pachamamahome.com.
The main area of this hostel is warm and welcoming with
a wood-fire pizza oven that keeps the room toasty and
plenty of board games and a book exchange to keep
travellers happy. Rooms here are pleasant, while those in
the two annexes down the street are basic and lack ch arm;
those with a private bath will set you back a bit more. S35
Ì Valle del Fuego T 054 668 910, W valledelfuego
.com. Laidback and friendly owner Yamil will welcome you
with a potent pisco sour (“the authentic pisco sour, not the
one for tourists…”). The brick and stone rooms, all with
private bath, are warm and welcoming and command lovely
views over the surrounding mountains. You can rent mules
and horses here (S60), as well as mountain bikes. Breakfast
included. Their rustic family-run restaurant and bar just a
few doors down serves pizzas a nd sa ndwiche s (S1 0-15) as
well as set menus for S10. Dorms S10 , doubles S40

9

violent reputation that the Lima viceroy
moved in with soldiers to crush the
Salcedos before things got too out of
hand. In 1668 he created Puno as the
capital of the region and from then on it
developed into Lake Titicaca's main port
and an important town on the silver trail
from Potosí. Rich in traditions, Puno is
also famed as the folklore capital of Peru.
During the first two weeks of February,
fiestas are held in honour of the Virgen de
la Candelaria - a great spectacle, with
incredible dancers wearing devil masks,
which climaxes on the second Sunday
of February.

WHAT TO SEE AND DO
Puno is a congested, chaotic but friendly
town, compact enough to walk around.
Most travellers use it as a stopover on
their way to see the islands, but there are
a couple of sites of interest in the town
itself. There are four main points of
reference in Puno: the spacious Plaza de
Armas , the cosmopolitan strip of Jirón
Lima on which most restaurants and bars
can be found, tiny Parque Pino and the
bustling port area.

Puno and
Lake Titicaca
An immense region both in terms of its
history and the breadth of its magical
landscape, the Titicaca Basin makes most
people feel as if they are on top of the
world. The skies are vast and the horizons
appear to blend away below you. With
a dry, cold climate - frequently falling
below freezing in the winter nights of July
and August - Puno is a breathless place
(at 3870m above sea level), with a burning
daytime sun in stark contrast to the icy
evenings. On the edge of the town spreads
the vast Lake Titicaca - enclosed by white
peaks and dotted with unusual floating
islands . The lake is home to the Uros
culture, as are the beautiful island
communities of Amantani and Taquile ,
which can all be visited by boat from Puno.

The Plaza de Armas and around
he seventeenth-century Catedral on
the Plaza de Armas (Mon-Fri 8am-noon
& 3-6pm, Sat 8am-noon & 3-7pm,
Sun 7.30am-noon & 3-5pm; free) is
surprisingly large, with an exquisite
Baroque facade and, unusually for Peru,
a very simple interior, in line with the
local Aymara Indians' austere attitude to
religion. High up, overlooking the town
and Plaza de Armas, Huajsapata Park sits
on a prominent hill, a steep ten-minute
climb up Jirón Deustua, right into Jirón
Llave, left up Jirón Bolognesi, then left
again up the Pasaje Contique steps.
Huajsapata offers stupendous views across
the bustle of Puno to the serene blue of
Titicaca and its unique skyline, though
there have been some reported muggings
here, so be careful.

PUNO
The first Spanish settlement at PUNO
sprang up around a silver mine discovered
by the infamous Salcedo brothers in
1657, a camp that forged such a wild and

The Yavari
Moored in the dock of the Hotel
Sonesta Posada del Inca , the nineteenth-
century British-built steamship Yavari