Our Trip to Puno on the Shore of Lake Titicaca (Day 1)

Tuesday, 30 May 2017

Our Trip to Puno on the Shore of Lake Titicaca (Day 1)

01 March 2017

We trek by car 10 hours south east to the city of Puno. The drive takes us over countless bends and speed humps of the highlands over La Raya pass (4,335m) which make this journey far longer than it would in any developed country. We also drive through several thunderstorms before arriving in Puno at 9:45pm.

We approach Mt Chimboya (5,489m) over the La Raya mountain range on our journey to Puno.

That day Klaus reports the latest numbers of Diospi Suyana hospital patients, with 25,565 patients being residents of Puno State. This is out of a total of 222,969 patient visits to Diospi Suyana hospital since 2007. Puno is a city of some 200,000 people.

Our team is made up of Diospi Suyana building engineer Udo Klemenz, broadcast engineer Chris Welch, head of Diospi Suyana Media Centre Doris Manco and Klaus. This trip is to acquire a site of land on the hill overlooking the city of Puno for our FM radio tower.

Puno is a very picturesque place and is the gateway to Lake Titicaca bordering Peru and Bolivia in the Andes mountains. The very large expanse of water (190km long, 80km wide, 8,372 km² in area) is also deep (max. 281m) and makes claim to be the world’s highest navigable lake with surface elevation of 3,812 meters. Its waters are famously still and brightly reflective.

Map of Lago (Lake) Titicaca and its surrounding populations.

There is much Inca history associated with Lake Titicaca and home to the famous floating islands and reed boats (stock photo).

Arriving at our hotel in the night we walk past rubbish left by the daytime street markets – walking past discarded pigs heads and scavenging dogs leaves me wondering what part of the world we have entered into – a great mission experience! J Sadly there are no waste containment systems in Peru – rubbish is simply left of the street for manual scoop up collection. For example the provincial capital city of Juliaca is the worst I have seen and its entrance is like the gateway to hell in my mind - see my photos below, taken as we drove through Puno. It is a good reminder of the need here and the purpose of our work in Peru.