The city of Puno is on the western shore of Lake Titicaca, more than 12,500 feet above sea level. There are many fascinating cultural sites to see in and around the city, but when I disembarked from the spectacular train ride, I was tired, cranky and really feeling the altitude.

I got a taxi to my hotel and found out that although the hotel appeared to be right in the historic district (where I prefer to stay) it actually was a bit outside, in the more crowded and gritty section of town. In addition, there was construction happening on both sides of the place. Once inside, it looked a bit better and they had my reservation ready. Someone helped me carry my bag up to the second floor, which was when I discovered they had given me a room with an interior window (a not-uncommon feature on this trip.) I was too tired to say anything.

I had originally scheduled an all-day tour, including visiting the floating islands, but I had decided (rightly) that I wouldn’t feel like traipsing around for 10 hours at that altitude. So I searched for something shorter and found a half-day tour that promised a visit to a viewpoint where I could see the lake, a local family and a pre-Ican burial ground. I was asleep before 9:00pm.

The next morning, I decided to walk down to the main square, which looked to be about a half-mile away. Walkable. Sure!

Except…the sidewalks were crazy uneven and the traffic was…well, picture two double-lanes of traffic with NO traffic lights and cars just darting every which way whenever they perceived an opening, plus those tiny little three-wheeled things (taxis?) moving in and out of the main traffic like bugs and horns beeping constantly. AND…I was walking up a slight incline. Slight, except at 12,500 feet it felt like a mountain.

I stopped a “crosswalk”, unsure of when to go, and a woman who had been walking in the same direction said, “Stop, wait, I will show you when to go!” She took my arm and began guiding me along. She spoke very good English. Her name was Lourdes and she ran a travel agency. She said that she had lived in Puno for the past 8 years and still wasn’t used to the traffic or the altitude. She got me safely to the main square (with several rest stops) and recommended a coffee shop where I could sit and read and have a decent latte. She was my hero!

I found the cafe and ordered myself a latte. It was lovely. (The hotel had a decent cooked breakfast included…but they only served Nescafé. 😠) I sat and relaxed and read and wrote my blog. And had another latte and began to feel almost normal.

Then I wandered a bit around the main square and into the beautiful old church. Almost all the Catholic Churches in Peru were built on former Inca temple sites. One religion “replacing” another, I suppose.

My afternoon tour began at 2:00, giving me time to go back to the hotel for a quick lie-down. As I mentioned, the altitude was really having an effect and I was glad that the tour was going to be mostly driving around and standing still. Our first stop was a view point, high above the lake. There were huge representations of a Puma and a Snake. These animals, along with the Condor, are called the Inca “Trinity” and are symbols of heaven, the earth and the afterlife. They can be found in many artworks. In this case, the Condor statue was across the lake at another viewpoint.

We continued on, out of the city and into a very rural area. The houses here have been constructed in the old way, with solid stones. We pulled up to a small farm. I noticed the bulls on top of the arch…just like the ones I had painted. I was told that there were always two…a bull and a cow, to represent both aspects of the gods.

The woman who lived at the house was waiting for us. She had placed different kinds of quinoa out for us to view, plus baked several kinds of potatoes and made bread from quinoa flour. There are more than 4,000 kinds of potatoes in Peru, over 3,000 varieties of quinoa and about 50 different types of corn!

The flour was ground in the traditional way, with a stone.

The woman was spinning yarn on a drop spindle from the wool of her alpacas, which we had seen in the yard. She had a rug started on her loom and several finished pieces. They were all beautiful.

And then…the BEST thing happened. I noticed that she had a box full of balls of hand-spun alpaca yarn. I asked her if she would be willing to sell some of that to me. She agreed. Then I saw that there was a HUGE ball of yarn attached to the loom and asked if she’d sell that, too! She took a scissors and cut it right off the loom. Price? 100 soles; about $25. So now I had three small balls of yarn and one gigantic ball…enough to probably make a good-sized shawl. Hand-spun, from the alpacas I could see in the yard. I was ecstatic; it made my whole trip to Puno.

The rest of the tour was anti-climatic. When we got to the funeral tower things, I decided not to climb up to them. I sat on a little bench and let the nearby sheep “baa” suspiciously at me, read my book and occasionally touched my yarn balls. I felt very happy.