At the edge of Lake Titicaca, at an altitude of 3,860 meters above sea level lies Puno, a captivating, enchanting city. The city has a strange magnetism that seems to emanate from the surrounding mountains, its lake that's looks more like an ocean, and its people, descendants of the Aymara, a strong people who once ruled the high plateaus.
Lake Titicaca is the world's highest lake navigable to large vessels, lying at 3,810 m above sea level in the Andes Mountains of South America, astride the border between Peru to the west and Bolivia to the east. Titicaca is the second largest lake of South America (after Maracaibo).
The Aymara people living in the Titicaca Basin still practice their ancient methods of agriculture on stepped terraces that predate Inca times. The highest cultivated plot in the world was found near Titicaca - a field of barley growing at a height of 4,700 m above sea level. At this height the grain never ripens, but the stalks furnish forage for llamas and alpacas, the American relatives of the camel that serve the Indians as beasts of burden and as a source of meat.
The remnants of an ancient people, the Uru, still live on "floating islands" of dried totora (a reedlike papyrus that grows in dense brakes in the marshy shallows). From the totora, the Uru and other lake dwellers make their famed balsas - boats fashioned of bundles of dried reeds lashed together that resemble the crescent - shaped papyrus craft pictured on ancient Egyptian monuments.
Escorted Tours including Puno/ Lake Titicaca:
*This region of Peru is famous for its varied and colorful folk traditions, as it has some of the most dazzling and richest folk ceremonies to be witnessed in this part of the continent. The most dazzling of all, without doubt, is the celebration.
