We got another fairly relaxed morning. We had a nice breakfast and then walked around the island and got to see the alpacas again, and watched some flickers. We met at 10:15 and Raul told us a bit about his family and the education and experiences that led to him being a tour guide. It was touching and really reinforced the message he has given since the beginning that we are all part of the family of humanity but with widely differing traditions and lifestyles. Then he asked everyone their favorite part of the trip and that was interesting as well because many people booked the trip expecting Machu Picchu to be the “main event” but found they were more affected by other features on the tour.
Afterwards we got on a huge bus to take us and our luggage away from Puno. We stopped at a grocery store in Puno so people could buy snacks for lunch, since breakfast was our last included meal and there was no stop for lunch before our 4:30 flight.
About forty-five minutes of driving from Puno we stopped at the Sillustani archeological site. This is a small plateau above a lake at about 12,785 feet / 3897 meters elevation where the Colla people and later the Inca built burial towers for important people.
This area was used for hundreds of years, over which time the towers grew in height and showed great advancements in stone working skills. It appears that the Inca learned much of the building techniques they are famous for from the Colla, as the late Colla buildings have large and extremely tight-fitting blocks that interlock in the same way we saw in the Inca structures in Cusco and Machu Picchu.
The burial practice was the same as we saw at Huaca Pucllana - the bodies were desiccated in a fetal position in layers of leaves, cloth wrappings, and a final basket-like covering. Here, however, the wives, daughters, and servants were included as offerings. That is, they would chew the variety of coca leaves that contain the cocaine alkaloid, then have their mouths stuffed with coca powder so that they suffocated to a painless death, then their bodies were added to the tombs.
Afterwards, we ate our snacks on the bus as we rode to Juliaca. At the airport we boarded an A320-NEO to Lima.
We arrived and got out of the airport around 6:45 after saying farewell to some of the group who had flights in the next couple hours. The rest of us loaded into a bus to get a ride across the street from the airport at the Hilton. There Raul had arranged for us to have a fixed-price menu dinner while our luggage was taken to our rooms. By the time we finished dinner we had about two hours to spend in the very nice rooms before we had to leave. We downloaded some videos to watch on the plane, freshened up a bit, re-packed the luggage, and then laid down for fifteen minutes rest.
We boarded the bus again at 10PM for the ride back across the road to the airport. There we had a somewhat teary farewell with Raul, then our flight left at 1AM. Eventually we arrived at our home airport at noon.
We came home with a lot of neat souvenirs and gifts from the trip.
This was a really well-constructed tour that showed us a lot of Peru in a short time. I came away very impressed with EF Go Ahead, our tour guide, and the local expert guides. There were some deviations from the itinerary, but the only things we missed out on were the stops that would have happened on the long bus ride from Cusco to Puno. While our late-night bus ride was a bit grueling, we mostly traded some scenery for an extra night’s stay at what was probably the most comfortable hotel on the trip. The big thing we missed was Raqch’i, which does look really interesting.
As mentioned above, Machu Picchu was the “bucket list item” that sold the trip for many, including me, but via the education we received on our tour, I found there is much more to Peru than I imagined. I still consider Machu Picchu the highlight of the trip because the construction techniques of the Inca fascinate me, but I gained tremendous respect for the many people in Peru who still live much as their ancestors from hundreds of years ago did. I learned so much that I’ve had a hard time limiting how much I write.
Based on our tour I would unreservedly recommend EF Go Ahead tours. Unfortunately I heard about an EF Go tour to Ecuador from a friend where, due to a strike threat similar to the one that changed our itinerary, their tour group ended up spending one night at the airport, another night at a hotel, half a day of the tour itinerary, and then an early return, so their tour was a complete disaster. While local political disturbances are tricky to deal with, our tour worked out fine, but our friend’s ended in huge disappointment. I respect that tour operators have to balance the safety of the tourists against sending them into unpredictable situations, but in this case it sounded like tours that arrived a day or two later went on as planned, leading to a sense of unfair treatment.