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Published: August 30th 2008
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I gasped for breath.
The dance was a chaotic swirling of colors: blues and reds, oranges and browns.
We moved to the sound of Andean flutes, in a small house, on a tiny little island, on Puno Lake, under the star-filled Andean sky.
I slept very well that night.
.....
They lived on a lake atop islands made of totoro weed, in houses made totoro weed, even ate totoro as a snack. I had thought that such a thing was outside the realm of what was possible. Yet, here I was standing solidly on a floating island of weed. Makes me wonder what else is possible.
…..
"Cuy al Horno, senior." The waiter announces as he place the plate in front of me. On it, a roast guinea pig split down the center line into two halves.
Some at the table takes out their camera for a photo.
I dig in.
“Did you ever have one as a pet when you were a kid?”
“Nope. Want to try some? Tastes kind of like rabbit, but a bit more gamey.” I replied.
.....
It felt as if I was in a wasteland. Only grass
grew at this altitude, there were no trees, there were no insects, and there were no wild animals that I could see. The only traces of life were a few alpaca and the people who raised them.
The air was thin and cold, but the sun was out and the sky was clear. At this altitude, the sun is very strong. It warms the skin, but it can also burn it if not careful. I kept feeling as if I was wearing either too little or too much. The sun and the heat of activity kept was enough to keep comfortably warm, but every now and then an icy wind would blow by and chill against the sweat from hiking. Every time we stopped for a rest, I put on my cap and gloves. Every time we started walking again, I took them off.
An old man in a bright red and orange garment waited on the side on the road. He was spinning alpaca wool into yarn. One hand took loose wool fibers from a big pile that lay by his side and fed them to his other hand which skillfully spun the wool tighter and tighter
till it became yarn wrapped against a wooden spinner.
The man spoke neither English nor Spanish, but Quechua, the native tongue.
Our guide conversed with the man, and then proceeded to tell us about the man’s life.
“This man is eighty. The people here tend to live very long lives. This man is waiting for his son to come home from school…” Our guide explains.
“…The school is several mountain passes away because that’s where the teacher is. Every morning his son wakes up and walks to school, every evening he walks back.”
People here seem remarkably hardy.
After some time had pass, we got up and said goodbye to the old man. It was then that I took a good look around. The sheer vastness of the land was overwhelming. The surface of the earth rolled up and down and stretched on into the horizon. My gazed wandered up. The color of the sky seems to become more intense the higher up you go. It was the bluest of blues. This was no wasteland, it was a paradise.
In that moment, I felt a bit guilty about being a tourist, for intruding on the simple
Gasp
The bluest of blues. lives of these people. I was the ripple in an otherwise peaceful lake.
…..
“What? They only let four hundred people climb Wanu Pichu every day?”
A girl ran up to the counter to look at the logbook and shouted back to her friend, “three hundred and seventy one!”
The people in line looked at each other. A man who tried to cut in line quickly withdrew when the people behind him threaten him with bodily harm. I took a long look at the peak, waiting in this line might be as close to it as I will get. It would be such a shame to come all this way just to turn around. Fate can have a cruel sense of humor sometimes - but not today. "I’m number three hundred and ninety three, baby!"
After an hour's hike up, fate proved that it was just holding back. It started to sprinkle lightly, covered some steps with a light layer of slippery mist. As I frantically scrambled down to catch my bus, I lost my footing and fell several times.
…...
It was a nice clear day in the Amazon Jungle - no rain.
The sun was out. Birds and insects flew all about. The air was sweet and lush greenery grew everywhere. My lips, horribly chapped from being in higher altitude, had begun to heal. My lungs felt full again with each breath. It felt good.
I am not sure if I remember how to swim. I was never a very good swimmer to begin with. It is unlikely that I’ve gotten any better since the last time I tried some four years ago. I sat on the boat, listening to the motor hum, watching the reddish brown waters of the river glisten in the sun. I couldn’t resist.
You can’t drown with a life jacket on right? Shortly after - I managed to prove myself right.
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