Advertisement
Just a little one (well it should’ve been) before we set off on the Inca trail tomorrow! Which, since we’re on the subject, I’m absolutely dreading! I’m sure after the four days I’ll be raving about how amazing it was but, after all the good life and steak eating of the past five and a half months, we’re so unfit and all I can manage to think about at the minute is that it’s going to hurt! A lot. Does anyone know any Rick Waller types or one legged enthusiastic dwarfs who’ve completed it to make me feel better? We went to the office of Peru Trek yesterday in Cuzco to part with more of our dwindling funds and we had a briefing with one of the guides, informing us of the five and a half hour steep climb on day two followed by the 11-13 hours trekking on day three. I can’t wait! I’m sure it’ll all be fine, better than being stuck down a mine with some sadistic crazy Bolivian I guess.
Anyway, moving on, after leaving the lovely Isla del Sol and Copacabana behind we (Sarah, Nic and I) made our way on the ‘gringo’ bus to Puno,
crossing the border into our final country, Peru. The first thing I noticed was that Peru actually had roads, real roads! Not only were they paved but they also had lines down the middle and some even cat’s eyes! Crazy! Unfortunately though the driving was probably just as risk-ay as in Bolivia.
Puno certainly wasn’t the prettiest place I’ve ever been. Set on the shores of Lake Titicaca I’d had rather higher expectations of the city, but with grey clouds setting in and the stench of the algae covered polluted port area, my picture postcard image soon disappeared. We spent the afternoon wandering around, buying little souvenirs from the local handicraft stalls and even managed an educational visit to the oldest ship on lake Titicaca; the British-built Yavari. (The Yavari, now a museum, was built in England in 1862 and was shipped it small parts to Arica, then by rail to Tacna and eventually carried over the Andes by Mule, taking six years to complete. Yeah OK I copied that from our guidebook!)
Our hostel was ran by the eccentric, chain-smoking Alfredo, who eerily seemed to know the exact whereabouts of all his guests at any time. We made the
Salivary couple
Can you see them, she did have her own seat but chose to sit on him for the majority of the journey. Grim. choice (mistake?) of booking a day tour to the Islands of Uros and Taquile with an external company rather than Alfredo‘s. The next morning when we ventured down for our early breakfast a voice (possibly similar to the Peruvian Demon Headmaster) boomed “Nicholas!! Where are you going?” Nic nervously explained we were going on a tour (not with his company) and span off our elaborate tale about a group of our imaginary friends booking the tour for us. Alfredo continued un-phased, interrogating poor Nic about our trip, when we were leaving, how much it cost etc. The three of us eventually managed to escape Alfredo’s beady eye and headed to the port to catch our boat to the floating island of Uros. We hadn’t realised that we’d inadvertently booked ourselves onto the love boat, I’ve never seen so many grim inappropriate couples (call me unromantic). None so bad as the Peruvian couple sitting in front, giving us the special view of her saliva stringing from her mouth to his ear, and this continued for the entire day. We reached the floating island constructed of reeds and were helped aboard by the singing and dancing inhabitants in full traditional dress. Apparently
it‘s what they wear every day?! These people get their major source of income from tourism, so there was no doubt that it was all a bit touristy, but the eight families did genuinely live there. We had an interesting talk about life on the islands and some of the elder woman even threw in a bit of market role play to mix it up a bit, before came the inevitable time to buy the islanders handicrafts. The second Island of Taquile was actually a real (natural) island and we were pleasantly surprised of how beautiful a place it was. Again we had an informative talk about the islanders way of life, interestingly their dress was explained to us; the women with big pompoms attached to their scarves were single whilst married woman only had little pompoms; the single men had only half stripy hats the rest white, whilst married men had fully stripy hats. This meant that for the rest of the time on the island we puzzled why that man over there, who looked about 50 wasn’t married, and commented on the size of every passing woman’s pompoms - great fun! Nic, who’s become organized tours least favourite
fan, managed to complain for the entire length of the island about every person on the tour repeatedly, and when we sat down for lunch in the restaurant we were made to eat in and the salivary couple came and sat next to him it almost finished him off (glad to see the past months have taught him tolerance, patience and compassion - ha!). That evening we went out for some local grub, to say bye to Sarah who we weren’t going to see for at least one day. The restaurant was a dot more expensive than we wanted but after the best Pisco Sours drink ever, not to mention that it was free, and then some crazy local dance-music show starting we knew we’d made the right decision. The dancing was one of the most bizarre shows I’d ever seen, it started as relatively normal traditional folk dancing and then came some party scene which involved the women being sexually assaulted and then some dancers in thigh high space boots and spangled mini skirts danced to some traditional beats. Don’t really know what it was all about but it was highly entertaining.
Nic and I opted for an extra
night in Puno so we could have a day to chillax. I can’t recall one day whilst we’ve been away when we haven’t done anything (I can feel the empathy) so we had a well deserved lazy day exerting ourselves only when we had to eat and to watch Tropic Thunder (very amusing). The next day, we travelled to Cusco on some over-priced tourist bus (the regular buses had been booked out by these annoying ‘adventure’ tour groups who can’t manage to get on a bus by themselves) which stopped at ‘places of interest’ along the way. There were an array of characters for Nic to abuse for the nine and a half hour journey, keeping him amused, not least the old French woman who stood in the aisle of the bus for most of the journey blocking everyone’s view with her generous (says me) behind, snug into her purple velour and pink silk jumpsuit. Nice. The scenery was amazing, passing snow capped mountains, llama filled fields and finally to the lush valleys of Cuzco.
Cuzco is a gorgeous place with examples of Inca architecture and stunning colonial buildings as far as you can see. We’ve just been spending our
time here exploring , visiting the over-rated Inka Museum and getting together everything for the Inca Trail. Which reminds me that I’d better get going….
Big Love, Cat x
Advertisement
Tot: 0.106s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 12; qc: 59; dbt: 0.0628s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Pete
non-member comment
'Folk dance'
Hi Cat, I would just like to congratulate you on your amazing journalistic powers. I was most interested to hear that sexual assault is rife in Peru. It has restored my faith in human nature. I also applaud your excellent pictures of said scene. I laughed a lot. Nearly as much as when earlier in these entries you chronicled, in pictures, the journal entry you were writing to your Bra. Hurrah for Folk dance. Stay safe both of you. xxx