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A car with all the extras
Heh this was awesome, someone had taken the sticker from a bus in Nazca with the signs for air conditioning, DVD player etc. from a bus and stuck it on thei car Tim Version:
* Made the now very long ridiculus trek to Puno.
* Saw the Floating Islands and other sights of Puno, but unfortunately got stuck 3 more days by more blockades...
The "Why are these protests and blockades following me!!" version:
Puno, it's taken a bit of a mission to get here but I finally arrived. Instead of the direct 6 hour bus ride from Cusco, due to the strikes I had to go from Cusco to Nazca overnight then the next night on to Arequipa and then from there finally to Puno. The bus ride to Nazca, urgh, not a good one! We had a seriously fast driver and it is nothing but corners so no sleep was found on that one but instead I had a full day to kill in Nazca which I'd already seen so some sleep in the sun was found there. The second part, easy enough.
Unfortunately I rocked up too late in Puno to do the afternoon Sillustani Towers tour but I met up with a couple of Aussies from Melbourne and we all headed out for food and drinks. Its a basic place Puno but along the
main street there are some decent joints to hang out in to entertain yourself and get away from the cold. Unfortunately in the main square talking to some locals and a couple of Irish people we found out that there was a 72 hour strike coming up in Bolivia blocking us from reaching La Paz! I'd jokingly said before that the strikes seemed to be following me but this was just getting ridiculus... so we decided to drink our anticipated sorrows for the days to come and had a bunch of strange cocktails and ended the night with some high altitude easy drunkeness.
The next morning I went on my Floating Islands tour with another bloke from the hostel, and while not bad I can see why the guide books say it is all a bit over touristed and cheesy now. The boat crawls along slowly out of the docks, out through the reeds and algae and points out a few sights along the way - the very rich looking white hotel on its own island area, the reconstructed metal British ship which has a bit of history, and then comes the unfortunate cheesy part, learning some of the
local language. Sounds like a good thing to do right? Well, it could be but not like this unfortunately. In both Spanish and English you learn the ¿¿AYAMARAN?? way to say "Hello, how are you?" then you learn and have to repeat aloud the answer in the same dialiect. It could be done well but the way it was presented in my opinion was just insulting to the language and the people that speak it. Thankfully after that you are presented with a whole lot more facts about Lake Titicaca and the relationships of Bolivia and Peru with the lake which is interesting.
On the Island you are greeted getting off the boat with all the women from the village standing in a line where you are greeted and have your hand shaken by every one of them and they all say nothing but the one question you learned on the boat in their dialect, where you are expected to respond with the same answer to all of them - urgh, I felt like I was on a really cheesy british travel program for the rich, it was horrible! Thankfully after that in the presentation the locals take over
and it gets way better! You learn how they make the islands, about their types of food, how they hunt local animals and a few other things. Its presented half seriously but they make a lot of jokes during it and muck around which is awesome as it takes the whole cheesy edge off it. Post presentation we got to wander around and check out the island which takes all of a minute but it is amazing how spongy and comfortable it is on there, the whole place working as one big comfy bed in the sun for me! The houses are small and basic built of the reeds too but most have a solar panel, TV, radio and so life isn't too basic at all anymore. You can take a boat ride in a local reed boat too for an extra cost but I opted for sleep in the warm sun instead. As the boat heads off you get the same cheesy kind line of all the local women singing local songs in Spanish, ¿¿AYAMARAN?? and QUECHA but again they inject it with some humour and its pretty damn funny which was wicked. With all that said and done
we cruised back to the mainland and that was the floating islands over and done with!
A few hours later I jumped on the Sillustani Towers tour, though no-one from the hostel came on that one (I don't think anyone had even heard of them). About a 45 minute drive away, they are the funeral towers from many different generations and various different cultures and for me my last set of ruins on this trip. The tour gives a good history on the towers and explains their usage, and explains which cultures built which towers and so forth. The range from basic piles of rubble right up to one truly astounding large tower is pretty fascinating, and the landscapes around just as much so. There is a small island very close to the area with the towers too that is protected and houses a large number of the protected species PECUÑA thats beautiful to look at but as it is protected you can't visit it. We had one bloke of some 60 years old from Holland though that really shouldn't have been there as he wasn't nearly healthy enough. Talking to the guide a lot, it turned out he
has heart troubles and for a start medically shouldn't have been at those altitudes. He was struggling and gasping the whole time and the small walk up to the top where the towers are was definitely a massive struggle for him. He also kept yelling at the guide to "SPEAK ENGLISH" whenever he would start an explanation despite all explanations coming in both English and Spanish every time, much to the annoyance of many as it reached a point where the guide couldn't even speak Spanish if this guy heard him so he had to explain after in extra time to those that needed Spanish. It shat me up the wall so much that anyone dare yell at the guide to not speak in frstly his language, secondly the language of the country, and thirdly the language of around half of the group. We visited a local family after and tried some of the local food and saw some of the ways they farm and again had the same troubles with him, but after a small time he appeared to look very ill, threw up, then he went and sat in the bus. This made the end part of the
Welcome?
Looks more like a keep out sign than a welcome sign! tour much nicer and more happy but we did have big concerns for the guy. I felt bad for the guide as he was responsible for the groups welfare and having that guy in the bus waiting made him rather nervous during the explanations. While I have great sympathy for those with serious health troubles such as this guy from Holland I also think that it is the person's responsibility not to pass more responsibility onto others (unless of course it is a doctor/nurse/relevant medical professional) as it just isn't fair. It was just irresponsible and uncaring in my opinion. Anyway heh, it obviously made me a little mad...
Back in Puno I found out the strike was definitely on. For the next 3 days we all got up each day at 6:30am to find out if the buses were running and each day we found that no the strike was still on and we still couldn't go anywhere. 3 days is a long time to spend in Puno so I think I saw all of it, hiding in the hostel at night away from the cold, and while its an OK place after 4 days in total it
is definitely too much. The view from the miradors are much the same asfrom anywhere in town and when we finally woke up the lastmorning again at 6:30am and found that yes, the buses were going, we were all ecstatic to be on our way to Bolivia finally!
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