Why the bad reputation: Puno

So of course I woke up early this morning and couldn't get back to sleep, so I started looking for another hotel or hostel immediately. After a sad breakfast of rolls and jam with jugo de naranga (oranhee as our host helpfully explained in Spanglish - that is orange juice), we checked out and walked a couple of blocks from the centre of town. It turns out even though the internet said there were rooms they had none, so they took us to another hotel they also ran. It is much, much more pleasant and even costs less. Fingers crossed for a good nights sleep.

After checking in we went into the centre of town again to see if we could get our 100 notes broken. Easy as at the bank! And we stopped at the information centre to get a map and directions to where we wanted to go. There is a strange eftpos transaction on our bank account that we may have to investigate though...

You can see the llamas if you squint

First up we got a taxi to Cemetario Laykakota and after some head scratching found the bus to Laraqueri, and were on our way to Cutimbo. Cutimbo is a flat top mountain with a few chullpas on it. Chullpas are large round or square stone towers built by the Colla people to bury their nobility. There is another site that has a lot more chullpas and so there are tours that run there. This was much more our type of thing. The bus dropped us beside the road and we began our walk up. It's really easy to forget you're at altitude, because there are flat plains and so the lack of mountains makes you forget. Walking up hill makes you remember pretty quickly though. There was one chullpa that was only a little way up, so we stopped there for a look and I climbed inside. After swollowing the fear that a skeleton was going to be sitting there, it turned out to be pretty cool. Almost at the top there is a side trip that takes you to a little cave with cave paintings. You have to look carefully but you can see llamas and people all over it. At the top there were three almost in tact chullpas, and one that was a bit run down. And not another person in sight. We both climbed in the biggest one and took some photos, there was just enough light. The outside of one of the chullpas had a few carvings of monkeys and a puma/jaguar. It was pretty cool, and the view was stunning. After strolling back down again we tried to find where we could pay our admission fee. No luck and after an unfruitful conversation with a local lady, we ran to flag down a bus back to Puno. The people are quite friendly, both ways people on the bus tried to have a little chat with us. With varying degrees of success.

Chullpas

Inside the big square Chullpa

After a super cheap lunch at a random restaurant, with the hottest salsa we've had so far, we headed towards Kuntar Wasi viewpoint. It turns out we went completely the wrong way, the path there does not lead through steep, gravely horse paddocks. Fancy that. From the top there is a fantastic view over Puno and you can just make out the floating Islands of Uros. We took the normal route down and were glad we couldn't find it on the way up. It definitely lives up to what people are saying about it on the Internet. Many, many, many stairs! And then some more. And then a few more.
All up today was pretty good. Tomorrow we head to the dock early to see if we can organize a home stay on an island for tomorrow night. Wish us luck!