La Glorieta, so much potential

North of the cold clear waters of Lake Titicaca, Puno is the folklore capital of Peru. Highlights of our stay there included a ride on the tricycle taxi, a grilled alpaca lunch, a hunt through the city for the post office to mail postcards, and, after discovering that post offices do not have mail drop boxes in Peru, a long micro ride with campesinas to Chuicuitos, just southwest of Puno.

Chuicuitos is a small and sleepy village also perched above the beautiful lake (the top half of which is also known as Chuicuito). In our web research back home we had discovered a hostal "off the beaten path" called La Glorieta that was not in any of the Peru guidebooks. The setting couldn´t be more stunning and romantic. The habitaciones are found in small stone buildings with spanish tile roofs and solar water heaters for each room. The quaint decor features alpaca and sheep wool apolstery and hand carved furniture. You´d think it really would be the place to rest after an arduous trek and get away from it all. Unfortunately, the comforts and service could be drastically improved.


Being so remote and undiscovered, we were actually the only folks staying at the hostal that night--or even that week--except of course for a couple new cute friends who really knew how to spit (see photo). As a result, the hostal caretaker wasn´t the most available and helpful as others along our journey. In addition, being so high in elevation, it was quite a chilly at night, even in our room. And the beds were a good "mind over matter" experience, to put it delicately. The shower stall was the entire bathroom itself, toilet and all, and the room would fill up quickly with water during the shower as there was only one small drain about 1 cm in diameter. It had emptied by the time we returned from our trout dinner up the hill. Needless to say, Char was ready to move on.

We set off for Copacabana with higher hopes and daydreams of running our own inn, because settings like this have too much potential!