Puno? Poo-yes

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After the sand dunes in Huacachina we jumped back on one of our friendly buses and headed southeast, working our way into more central southern Peru. We spent many hours going through spectacular country side. Looking out the window we saw endless plains, giant mountains, pristine looking rivers, flocks of sheep and alpaca, terraced land, ancient handmade rock fences, spectacular sky, lightning shows, simple mud houses, and most locals wearing the traditional colourful Peruvian clothes. All of these more than made up for the fact that our long bus ride almost doubled in length thanks to a labour strike of some sort; a long delay due to a road closure to accommodate a popular car race of some kind; and an eerie bus transfer done at a dark lonely deserted gas station overrun with somewhat wild dogs, including Rottweilers. The guide said we'd probably be okay as long as we didn't touch the dogs, or look at them. Which we didn't, so we were.

On our way south we made a few tourist stops, including a vineyard tour. As we pulled in a school group of 10-ish year old kids was just leaving from a tour of their own! We get it that pisco is the national drink but it is hard to picture taking Canadian kids to a brewery! As we headed further southeast there was nothing but desert and mountains of sand for miles. We went by the little town of Nasca, home of the famous mysterious Nasca lines, and decided to forgo the plane flight over the lines (motion sickness was a real risk) but we did get to look at a few of the line figures from a roadside viewing tower. As it turned out the super-tall rickety tower in the high winds was an adventure in itself.

We opted for an overnight bus ride as one of the legs of the bus tour. When we arrived in Arequipa, our next destination, we were super groggy and more than a little grumpy but luckily our hostel was open and willing to let us check into our room early (5:00 am) for about $3 extra. So we caught a cat nap before heading out to explore the beautiful colonial city. We figure that every town back home really should have a town square as they all seem to here. These are generally beautiful, grassy, car-free places for folks to gather, drink coffee, feed pigeons, get crapped on by pigeons, eat and generally hang out.

Back on the bus after doing some touring in Arequipa we headed to higher ground, to Puno at about 12,500 feet, the town on the edge of Lake Titicaca (insert any Titi or kaka joke here). Some people don't notice the altitude change so much, but we sure did. You could say we felt like kaka; we were tired and head-achey -it felt as if we were hung over, without any empties to show for it. We'd been warned by our Miraflores mom that we would not feel so hot and she had encouraged us to eat soup when we arrived. And because of that we fell in love with Peruvian sopa - especially quinoa soup. So good. But back to the travels... we were lucky enough to arrive in Puno when a huge festival was going on. There were endless parades of marching bands and tons of folks in elaborate costumes dancing through the streets. Although we weren't entirely in the mood for it that night we quickly came to appreciate their energy and enthusiasm.

A trip to Puno would not be complete without some kind of tour on Lake Titicaca and a visit to the various islands nearby. We opted for a home stay, which meant we would sleep over with a family living on Amatani Island. Our first stop was the incredible and overly touristy floating Uros reed islands. They are pretty cool -- the residents of these islands have maintained their age old ways: fishing, trading their fish for goods at the Puno market, keeping their island floating by replacing the rotting reeds with new ones, and entertaining tourists.

After the floating reed islands our boat took us several hours further out into massive Lake Titicaca to a couple small natural islands where our home stay was set up for us. When we arrived at Amantani Island we were greeted by our ancient host papa and had to make the walk to his house, climbing up the steep island, huffing and puffing along the way. This place was frozen in time: no roads, no cars, no running water, no power, no land in sight for miles. Halfway into the 1/2 mile trek to his house, papa Juliann pulls out a flip phone from his robe and starts chatting to host mama. This was unexpected, to say the least.

Invading our host-family's tiny dirt-floor dining room/kitchen/living room was a little awkward. They were super accommodating though and very nice from what we could understand: fortunately two other women were also staying with our host family, both of whom spoke Spanish. However, the Amantani language is Quechua and only one of the travellers spoke a little English, so conversations involved a lot of hand waving and guess-work. It was an educational trip though and we learned a lot about the local culture and history, we hiked up quite a ways to the highest point of the island to an Incan temple that had impressive views, even including a Bolivian mountain range. Nancy was dressed up in the local style and attended a village dance; both the dress fitting and the miniature doors in our house revealed how incredibly tall we were compared to the residents.

As for the title of this blog, well, one of us suffered from a number of ill-timed episodes of the travellers' gastronomic variety during this leg of our travels. Nothing like getting halfway up a mountainside trail full of tourists, with no trees or cover in sight and a sacred temple nearby, when nature loudly summons. Fortunately the problems only lasted a day or so; the coca tea brewed up by our Amanatani host family seemed helpful. This is not to be confused with a hot cup of cocoa, aka hot chocolate. Coca leaves - from which cocaine is produced - is used for EVERYTHING here. Nancy is ready to buy some mysterious coca ointment to help her arthritis!

The second island we went to was called Taquile Island, where again we did some great hiking (although it always seems to be up, which required frequent breaks at this altitude. Good training for the upcoming Inca trail!) through some stunning terraced slopes and learned more about local culture. Both Taquile and Amantani islands have interesting hat customs where the colour or type of their hats, combined with their sashes, still indicates marital and social status. It was also cool to see how they use one type of soap for all their cleaning, which they make as required from a local plant.

The return to the hustle and bustle of the mainland was a little harsh after the calm, quite, serene way of life on the lake. Lucky for us we are off to the rainforest next!

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Photos

Host mama Rosa.
Notice her skirt is not so mini.