Uros Floating Islands Tour from Puno
$23 Half Day
Overview
7 to 8 h
Cusco to Puno, hotel to hotel
Direct
No sightseeing stops
4,335 m
La Raya pass, crossed awake
$350
Per vehicle, one way
Most of what we sell on this road is designed to slow you down. The day bus takes ten hours because the point is the five stops it makes. The overnight bus takes eight or nine because you are asleep for them. This is the opposite product. It exists for the traveller who has a reason to be in Puno and no interest in the scenery on the way to it.
That reason is usually a fixed point at the other end. A boat that leaves early the next morning. A flight out of Juliaca. A family who will not survive ten hours of anything. Sometimes it is simply that you have already given Peru three weeks and you would rather not give it another whole day of road.
What you get is a car, a driver and the hour of your choosing. Bags go in once in Cusco and come out once in Puno. No queue, and no taxi negotiation at 3,827 metres with everybody tired. The road is sealed the whole way and the drive itself is straightforward.
What you do not get is worth stating twice, because it is the whole difference. No guide. No entrance fees. No stop at the painted church, the temple at Raqchi or the museum at Pucara. Those are genuinely good and they are on the other product, at a third of the price. Choosing this one means choosing to drive past them. Our Cusco to Puno options post sets all five ways of crossing side by side if you are still deciding.
The direction matters, whichever service you take.
Puno sits 400 metres above Cusco, and the altiplano is felt at dinner rather than in the car. Arrive having already spent a few days at Cusco’s 3,400 metres and you will be fine. Arrive fresh off a flight from Lima and you will not. Our post on whether to do Cusco or Puno first is the one thing worth reading before you book anything on this route.
Four Ways to Travel from Cusco to Puno, and What Each Costs
The same 390 kilometres, four different days. Here is what each one asks of you, and what it gives back.
Gold is the service on this page
Green is the cheapest way to see the four sites
This page
Private car
Time and stops
Seven to eight hours, hotel to hotel. No sightseeing stops, and you leave whenever you like.
Comfort
Normally a Hyundai Staria, four people with luggage. No terminal, no queue for your bags.
Price and who it suits
350 dollars per vehicle, no guide and no site visits. Families, tight connections, anyone who wants the day back.
Best value
Time and stops
About ten hours. Four sites and a lunch stop, on a timetable that is not yours.
Comfort
Reclining seat on a shared coach, with a guide who explains each site.
Price and who it suits
55 dollars a head. Most people, most of the time, and it is a good day out.
Cheapest
Time and stops
Around seven hours, straight through. You cross La Raya asleep and see none of it.
Comfort
A reclining seat and a blanket. Sleep is the point, and it is broken sleep.
Price and who it suits
From 45 dollars a head, and it saves a hotel night. Tight budgets and tight itineraries.
The splurge
Train
Time and stops
Ten hours or so, on set days only. The journey is the thing you are buying.
Comfort
Dining car, observation deck and the altiplano sliding past the window.
Price and who it suits
Several hundred a head. Travellers for whom the crossing is part of the holiday.
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A car is priced by the car, not by the seat.
Four of you in the car is 87.50 each. The day bus is 55 and visits four sites and lunch on the way. So you pay about thirty dollars more each for two hours saved, your own schedule and a door to door run, and you give up the sites. Two of you share the same 350, which is 175 each, and there you are buying comfort rather than arithmetic. Still undecided? We set every option side by side in our Cusco to Puno options post.
Tour Highlights
- ✓ Seven to eight hours against ten on the day bus. That is most of an afternoon handed back to you at the Puno end.
- ✓ Six in the morning, ten, or anything between. No timetable to build your day around, and no charge for changing it.
- ✓ Bags in once, bags out once. No terminal, no queue, no taxi to arrange at the far end while everybody is tired.
- ✓ Your group and the driver. Conversation, silence, a sleeping child, whatever the eight hours need to be.
- ✓ Coffee, a toilet, or a few minutes in the air if the altitude is telling. A coach does none of that on request.
- ✓ The pass at 4,335 metres is the best thing on the road, and the overnight bus crosses it in the dark.
What to Expect
The driver collects you from your hotel at the time you set. Eight in the morning is the usual choice and it is only a default. Earlier gets you to Puno for lunch. Later is no trouble at all, and neither costs anything extra.
Cusco thins out inside twenty minutes and the valley runs south, green and farmed, with the river alongside. This is the pleasant part of the drive and it lasts a couple of hours. You will pass the turn for Andahuaylillas and the walls at Raqchi without slowing. Better to know that now than to be disappointed on the day.
Then the climb. La Raya is the watershed at 4,335 metres, the highest point of the whole journey, and it is crossed in daylight with your eyes open. The overnight bus goes over the same pass at two in the morning with the curtains shut. It is a genuinely spectacular twenty minutes and it costs you nothing to look at it.
After the pass the country changes completely and stays changed. Flat, pale, enormous, with herds and adobe walls and very little traffic. Juliaca interrupts it, busy and unlovely, and then the lake appears and Puno follows about an hour later.
You are dropped at your hotel. On an eight o'clock start that is mid afternoon, with the evening still ahead of you. That evening is the entire point of paying for this rather than the bus. What to do with it is in our guide to Puno. If the lake is why you came, our guide to what is worth doing on Lake Titicaca is where to start.
Tour Itinerary
1
Pickup in Cusco
Collected from your hotel. Tell us the time at booking. Eight is the common choice, but it is your car and there is no supplement for leaving early or late.
Altitude 3,400 m
2
South through the valley
3
La Raya pass
4
Across the altiplano
5
Puno, at your hotel
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Good to know
On the vehicle
Normally a Hyundai Staria, comfortable for four with luggage. Four adults with four large cases is the realistic limit, not a theoretical one. Tell us if you are carrying more than usual. Child seats can be arranged with notice.
✓
Inclusions
- ✓ Private vehicle, normally a Hyundai Staria, for up to four passengers
- ✓ Professional driver for the whole journey
- ✓ Pickup from your hotel in Cusco at the hour you choose
- ✓ Drop at your hotel in Puno
- ✓ Luggage for four passengers
- ✓ Comfort stops for coffee, lunch, a toilet or a photograph
X
Not Included
- X A guide. This is a driver and a vehicle
- X Site visits and entrance fees. Nothing along the route is visited
- X Meals and drinks
- X Hotels at either end
- X Gratuities for the driver, welcome and never expected
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About the exclusions
On the price
The 350 dollars is for the car, one way, and it does not move with the number of passengers. One of you pays 350. Four of you pay 350. That is why the value depends almost entirely on how many of you there are. It is also why we quote it per vehicle. A per person figure would only hold when the car is full.
Departure Information
Available: Daily departures
Group Size: Up to 4 people
Start Time: Your choice of hour
Pickup: Hotel in Cusco
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