Lake Titicaca and Peru

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Boy, what a day yesterday. We left La Paz and got a ride to Copacabana, then took a boat out to the Isla del Sol and Isla de la Luna (Islands of the Sun and the Moon). The trip out there was good, and being on the islands was too - we bought a few things and looked around. Both had great views of the lake and the other islands.

The boat ride back, however, was not so fun. At Lake Titicaca, storms can spring up with only a moment´s notice, and they can be pretty vicious - the day before, a boat capsized, and one person died while being rushed to a hospital. There we were, out in the middle of the lake, and thunder started booming and storm clouds gathering. The waves became higher and higher, water splashing into the boat more than once, and then in started to rain. We strapped ourselves in, but were soon soaked and standing in a foot of water.

Out of nowhere, a whirlpool appeared in front of our boat. The captain was able to steer around it, but in the process we were tossed overboard and into the swirling torrent. We blacked out for a while, and when we awoke, we found ourselves in an underwater city, trapped inside a kind of bubble. No sunlight penetrated from above (Lake Titicaca is over 1000 feet deep), so lamps had been lit along the streets of the city. The tour guide had told us that Atlantis has once been in Lake Titicaca... we hadn´t believed him at the time, but now... how could we argue with him? A strange animal-person came up to us and began speaking to us. She was Pachumama, which means mother-earth in Aymara. She told us it was time for our reincarnation, that being the reason for the storm and the whirlpool.

When we told her we didn´t believe in reincarnation, she found herself in a bit of a quandary. She couldn´t reincarnate someone if they didn´t think it possible, and neither could she keep us down underwater. In the end, she decided to reverse the storm and the whirlpool (kind of like Superman reversing the rotation of the earth to turn back time). It was a pretty fun ride back to the surface, let me assure you.

So, anyway, we arrived at the Peruvian side fine, passed through customs, and took a long taxi to Juliaca. We changed hotels at the recommendation of our taxi driver and stayed the night in a pretty nice hotel.

This morning we woke up and took a 9 am plane to Cuzco. The flight was about 40 minutes; a bus would have been about 9 hours through the mountains. Pretty good choice on our part. We got to Cuzco and met with our travel agent. She took us to our driver, and we toured the Sacred Valley, climbing every stairway and hill the idiot could find. Okay, I guess I got carried away. After climbing for hours in the sun and high altitude, my brain is baked, and it´s hard to sort the ruin shaped like a puma head from the other ones shaped like puma heads, not to mention the condors and alpacas. Good thing we´ve taken five hours of video of it, so we can remember it all later.

It really was cool, all astronomically oriented, shadows making certain shapes exactly at the winter solstice (June 21st here). Tomorrow we take a train to Aguas Calientes, which is a short bus ride below Machu Picchu. Thursday is Machu Picchu and our return to Cuzco; Friday will be spent in Cuzco and Lima, and at 12:00 Friday night we fly out.

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Photos

Atlantis
The underwater city of Atlantis, home to Pachumama, found in Lake Titicaca.

Llama or Alpaca?
Me and a good llama friend of mine.

Isla de la Luna
Incan ruins on the Island of the Moon.

Comments

[Petrea]

Nice story, Greer
Hi Mark and Justin, Loved the story! The newspaper staff of Timpanogos will be pleased at Justin's ability to really get at the truth of a story. It sounds like the lake was amazing though. Keep up the information. Love, Mom