Cornholio the Great: ruler of Lake Titicaca!

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08/24/12

When arriving to Puno, we were really started to feel the altitude at this point. We checked into our hotel and the front desk were super nice about hooking us up with some Coca tea to ease our ailments. We walked down the street to the main plaza and of course there was a parade! This parade was rad because it was little kids with their pets, whether it be a dog, parakeets in a cage, or even fish in a fishbowl! The market down the street was interesting and we managed to track down some Chicha Morada and it was pretty amazing. Chicha Morada is a warm drink prepared with purple corn with the addition of fruit, cinnamon, clove, sugar, etc. I believe it was called something else, but I can't remember. As far as looking for a place to eat, most places were very similar so it was hard just to pick a place and eat there. The place we ended up going to was completely dead, which isn't always a good sign, but a very nice guy and his little kid were holding down the fort and greeted us with open arms, so we stayed. I felt bad because they actually had to go and buy wood for the stove to make the pizza I ordered. They didn't seem to mind at all and the pizza was definitely worth the wait.

The next day we took the boat tour of the Uros Islands. It was super touristy, but it was still pretty rad to stand on the floating islands and see how the people lived on the islands even though apparently they really don't live on the islands anymore? After the "natives" give their little presentation, you are awkwardly guilted into buying stuff from them, which was strongly encouraged. No big deal really because it's the least we can do to contribute to their economy a little more.

We woke up super early to catch our 10 hour train ride on the Andean Explorer from Puno to Cusco which had a reputation for being one of the most picturesque train rides in the world. Super nervous about missing it, I was freaking out because we couldn't figure out how to get into the main lobby and nobody was really around. We even ended up walking around the gate onto the tracks until somebody flagged us down and pointed us into the right direction. After some time we just noticed that we were super early and everybody else wasn't in any kind of hurry.

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