While traveling in Peru when I was climbing up the Colca Canyon near Arequipa, a traveler friend from the US asked me which place in Peru did I want to see next. I had heard about Puno and Lake Titicaca from the hostel people so I blurted out, maybe Puno. She said that she had heard that there are not many things to do in Puno, and most travelers skip visiting Puno; she was going straight to Cusco.
When my friend said that most people don’t travel to Puno, I felt thrilled. Though I have been to both offbeat and touristy places on my trips, Peru is a country with some of the coolest and remotest places to see which I definitely wanted to explore. While feeling unprepared to visit Cusco and join the mass of tourists who crowd the city hoping to see Machu Picchu, I booked a bus ticket to Puno.
Puno and Lake Titicaca were two of the coolest and most cultural places in Peru. While Lake Titicaca is one of the largest and highest lakes in South America, Puno is a small city that thrives on its bank. Though both the places are situated in the high Andes at an altitude of 4000 meters, they are not short of life.