I recently took a two day tour of Lake Titicaca with an overnight in Isla Amantina and I had a fantastic tour guide I wanted to recommend. His name is Clever, really.... it is Clever. His full name is Edwin Clever Apaza Asqui. He is based in Puno and his e-mail is Sapitoclever@yahoo.com. He was quite possibly the best tour guide I have ever had. His English was outstanding which really helps for me because my ear has an difficult time discerning through thick accents and the thoroughness and professionalism with which he conducted the tour was truly fantastic.
I happened to luck out in getting him serendipitously through a package I had arranged. I will definitely make arrangements to get him again if/when I return to Lake Titicaca. I have no connection with him otherwise and he doesn't even know I am writing this.
BTW, the lake was just beautiful as were the islands and it was far nicer than what I had been expecting.
Two other points: I would recommend flying rather than the very long bus ride from Cusco. Flights are into Juliaca which is an hour away from Puno. If you must take the bus, the only overnight bus I would consider is called the Inka Suites bus. It is by far the most comfortable. My weather was just perfect in the third week of April. The lake is at 14,250 feet so altitude sickness precautions like taking Diamox would be well worth considering. Be prepared with toilet paper in your possession; many public toilets do not have this.
great tour guide for Lake Titicaca and other recommendations
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Prefer to use Grupo Ormeno fastest
Paid $20 when there last
or inkaexpress.com touristic Cusco Titicacaperu.com
Flights VERY expensive
with expensive LAN tourist rip off you will pay 5-10X more
you go to Juliaca not Puno anothe hour away you take a $20
cab ride to get to Puno so I always save a tonne with Ormeno
5 hours or so flat nice ride for cab fare price from airport
to Puno... edgaradventures.com my fav or All Ways
both reputable providers have never heard of "clever".
Yes, I mentioned that flights were out of Juliaca which is an hour away.
Depends on your definition of expensive and value of your time.... I looked at just flying back from Puno to Lima and booking it the very same day, the flight was about $130 with TACA or LAN. It would have been worth it for 7 hours of my time and a bumpy sleepless night bus ride to have just paid that amount and fly where I wanted to. To me, that would have been cheap but certainly not for those who are on a very tight budget.
A lot of people enjoy the daytime Inca Express tourist bus which makes stops along the way at Andahuaylillas,Inca de Raqchi, the high pass, and Pukara.
I think that was the bus tour I paid for and was supposed to get, mlgb, but was part of my negative experience setting things up with Inkapal at the Cusco airport. I paid $45 for that day trip and ended up being put on a local bus that made many stops just for getting on and off from Cusco to Puno (I think the cost of the bus ride I got was $8-10 vs the $45 that I paid). I have read nice things about the Inca Express tourist bus. I think a good way to go is to take that bus during the day ride from Cusco to Puno and then fly back or take the very nice sleeper bus back from Puno to Cusco. The picture I saw of the Inka Express bus is okay but not nearly as nice as the sleeper bus I saw next to my bus which had the name Inka Suites on it. Maybe it is owned by Inka express and is a higher class of service; it would have been totally worth it for me to take that bus instead of what I was on. I was in bus envy.
My husband & I were in Peru mid-April and took the Inka Express bus from Cusco to Puno, extremely comfortable, with interesting stops along the way, would highly recommend it. The Lake Titicaca experience was of course out of the world, very different from Cusco/Sacred Valley/Machu Picchu but something we were glad we'd included in our trip. Neither of us took any medication for altitude sickness and were fine except for a little breathlessness, that's all.
I was quite astonished by my Lake Titicaca experience, geetika. We stayed overnight in Isla Amantina in a Peruvian home and dressed up in native attire and did some dancing. The islands were just gorgeous. I think Amantina is described in Fodors as "dusty and brown". Maybe they were there a different time of year but what I saw was stunning.