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A weaver shows her work to tourists near Titicaca Lake in Puno. Photo: ANDINA / Rafael Cornejo

Puno, Mar. 08 (ANDINA).- Peruvian and foreign tourists visiting the Andean department of Puno have now the opportunity to take a new tourist route called "Men and Stone", which includes visits to stone monuments and craft workshops/fairs in different towns around the provinces of Lampa and Melgar.

Gestur NGO representative Hernan Cornejo Rosello said that with the launch of the new tour hundreds of local poor communities will benefit from increased tourist flows.

The tour includes a visit to the traditional pottery village of Pucara and its Stone Museum showcasing a collection of sculptures such as monoliths, steles and zoomorphic pieces, as well as ceramics and other objects.

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Alpacas

What most people think of as camels—dromedaries and Bactrians—are so firmly associated with the deserts of Africa and Asia that it is hard to believe they have close relatives in South America. Camelids originated in North America 40 to 45 million years ago, then evolved on the continent's grasslands into a diverse array of forms, including the gazelle-like Stenomylus, the giraffe-like Aepycamelus, and the nearly 12-foot-tall Titanotylopus, which resembled today's Old World camels.

William Franklin, professor emeritus at Iowa State University in Ames, says, "At one time, there were probably several dozen genera of camelids in North America. In some areas, they were surely the dominant large herbivores." Then, six to three million years ago, opportunities for leaving their homeland arose when the Earth's climate cooled and sea levels fell, exposing land bridges to the south between Panama and South America, and to the north across the Bering Strait between Alaska and Asia.

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