TITICACA!

Welcome to another fun filled edition of my Peruvian life. This weekend was jammed packed of good times, good people, and amazing views. We left on Thursday night at 10. We had a six hour bus ride to Puno, which is located directly on Lake Titicaca. We had a group of nine awesome people; two from Australia, one from Texas, one from Pittsburg, another from California. You get the picture, we had a very diverse group. We arrived at four in the morning and decided to grab a hostel for a few hours before our 8 o’clock tour. One of the guys in our group is 28 and is an Iraqi war veteran. He made the comment that the city looked just like Baghdad. Exactly what I wanted to hear at 4:30 in the morning in a foreign country. We found a cheap sketch hostel and didn’t get settled in till about 5:30. I was ready for my one hour nap until some Peruvians had the great idea to start shooting fireworks. Awesome. Immediately, I remember the Baghdad comment and feel like I’m in a war zone. Sweet way to start the trip. Well I did survive the night, only to find that my room in the hostel didn’t have running water. So I’m was loving life on that great Friday morning.

Good news, we did make it to our Lake tour on time at 8. We were put in small boats and shipped out to the Los Uros Islands. The view that morning was worth the long night of travel. Puno turned out to be a cool city sitting on mountain side that runs along the coast of Lake Titicaca. The Uros are a famous tribe of pre Incan Indians who live on floating, man-made islands. They initially made the islands on the lake to escape from the other Indians tribes who they were constantly at war with. I guess it worked; they are still living in perfect harmony on the lake and you know how it turned out for the other Indians. They use a grass found in the lake to make the islands, boats, and houses. Each island has its own president. We visited one island and met the president and all the families. They were extremely nice people. We went for a boat ride on one of their handmade grass boats. They even have solar power now on some of the islands. I guess tourism business isn’t too bad. After spending about four hours on the Uros islands we headed out for a three hour boat ride to Amantani Island.

We arrived at Amantani and met the family we would be staying the night with. They were precious. I can say that since I was a foot taller than anyone else on the island. They took us up to their house which overlooked the lake. An awesome view to wake up to. After getting settled, we headed up to the Incan ruins. The Incas had built two temples on the island. One for the sun god and one for the moon god, both were located at the very highest point of the island. Oh by the way the islands on Lake Titicaca are basically mountains. So we had about an hour hike up to the sun god temple to watch the sunset. I’ve never seen anything more amazing in my life. The sun set over the Andes mountains and from the top we could see the snow capped Bolivian mountains as well. I got picture happy, so check out the pics on facebook. Afterwards, we headed back down to our family houses. They fed us their typical food; which consisted of a quinoa soup with some warm potatoes and vegetables. Then we were dressed in their typical outfits to go do some local dancing. I felt like Don Quixote in my attire. Although, the dancing was kind of a letdown. We basically held hands and went in a circle to some native music. I was having flashbacks to the 1^st grade playground playing red rover. After the long day we finally got some much needed sleep.

At 8 the next morning we got back on our tour boat and headed to our next island Taquile. After another two hour boat ride we arrived and proceeded to climb another mountain. We didn’t do much on this island we just got some really good pictures. We visited the town plaza. The people of Taquile are known for their textile production. We spent about two hours looking around then we were fed a local lunch. I choose fresh trout straight from the Lake. Yeah, it was as good as it sounds. Lunch was also cool because we ate outside overlooking the lake. These islands just don’t allow for a bad view. We returned to Puno that afternoon. We found a DIFFERENT hostel and grabbed a bight to eat at one the local pizzerias that night. The hostel was 180 degree turn around from our first night. It was run by mom and daughter. They were the nicest people I’ve ever met. They treated us like we were a part of their family. We had hot showers. They gave us directions to their five favorite restaurants. That night they brought up warming pads for our beds. It was basically the equivalent of an electric blanket in Peru. The next morning they cooked our choice of breakfast. AND the mom chased down a taxi for us to the bus station. When I say chased, I mean she literally ran down the street and stopped a taxi. I legitimately want to write them a Spanish thank you letter.

After arriving at the bus station at 8 we took a bus across the Bolivian border to Copacabana. It was hassle crossing the border for us Americans. They don’t really like us in Bolivia so they charge us $135 for a visa to visit the country. The good thing about it though is I didn’t come close to spending the much while in Bolivia. It’s extremely cheap. 7 Boliviano make 1 American dollar. We found bus rides for $2 and ate four course dinners for close to $5 dollars. A four hour bus ride later we arrived in Copacabana. We then got a hostel to put our gear in. We booked a tour for La isla del sol at 2. We had just enough time to grab some lunch and head to the docks. It was about a two hour boat ride to the island. We got to see the last two hours of sunlight on the Sun Island. It was another unbelievable sight to see with more snow capped Bolivian mountains in the background of Lake Titicaca. My group decided to stay close to the boat and not climb this mountain of an island. I wanted to see the view from the top. So I took off for the climb and got some amazing pictures. I must have gotten a little picture crazy again when I realized the boat would be leaving at 3:50. So at the top of the island I asked what time it was and of course it was 3:50. So I basically sprinted back down to the dock and got there at about 4. I looked to where our boat had docked and of it and my friends were gone. I was like great guess I’m spending the night on the island tonight. I’m probably gonna get eaten by some Puma or some unknown island creature. Luckily, about that time I saw my friends on top of a boat at a different dock waving for me. I, luckily, made it back on the right boat. We headed back to Copacabana for the night. That night we walked around Copacabana plaza and ate at another local restaurant. We went to bed early because we had another 8 o’clock bus ride in the morning.

The owner of this hostel didn’t chase down any taxis for us but it was still much better than my first hostel experience. We left Copacabana at 8 for La Paz, Bolivia. The bus ride was quite interesting. Thirty minutes into the bus ride along extremely curvy mountain roads we pulled into a small town on Lake Titicaca. The bus driver then made us get off the bus? As a tourist I just assume the worst. So I was thinking awesome they’re about to rob us and leave us in this little town. Well apparently I was just unaware that the bus can’t complete the journey to La Paz without crossing the lake. So all the passengers were sent to a small boat and shipped to the other side of the lake while our bus was loaded onto a tiny wooden boat and shipped across too. I was half expecting to our bus sink on the little dinky boat they sailed it across on. We also sailed across on an extremely small boat. About thirty people crammed into this wooden single engine boat. It happened to be a rough day on the lake. I was lucky enough to sit next to a Peruvian man that was carrying across a sack of potatoes. I’m guessing that he didn’t travel over the water very often cause he seemed terrified. I’m just minding my own business when this guy apparently sees a big wave coming and flips out. He grabs my upper thigh with a white knuckle grip for support against the wave and doesn’t let go for a good 30 seconds. Felt more like 10 minutes to me. So I’ve now been violated by a Peruvian, awesome. Anyways, we finally got back on the bus and continued our three hour trip to La Paz. We didn’t get to spend much time in La Paz but it seemed to be a pretty cool city. It’s set in between this mountain range. It looks like the city started in the valley and slowly spread all the way the mountains. It was a huge. My friends got some great pictures from the witches market.

We left La Paz for a 12 hour trip back to Cusco. It was quite an interesting ride back. Transportation has provided me with way too many stories thus far. We get to the Bolivian/Peru border at about 7 pm which is about closing time for them. Well Laura, one of our Australian friends had some complications coming across the border. Ends up she never technically left Peru and is in Bolivia Illegally. She didn’t do anything wrong it was just a mess up with how long her visa was meant to be for. BUT what this meant for us is we had to sneak her across the border back to Peru. It was highly stressful because the last thing we wanted was someone in a South American jail. So the plan was I would quickly get my passport stamped and comeback as she was just getting off the bus. I returned to the bus before she even got off. I waited on her and walked her across the border. I had her wait in a shop while I got my passport stamped on the Peru side. By then our bus had crossed the border, I got her and we quickly boarded. As we were boarding a cop ask me if I had got my stamp. Luckily, I was tall enough to block her from view but I showed it to him real quick on got on board. It was actually pretty intense. After the bus safely pulled away I basically felt like a secret agent.

Well that’s it for this blog, sorry for writing so much this blog but a lot happens in a South American weekend. This was actually the condensed version. Well , I’ll leave you with some things I’ve learned over the first week in Peru/Bolivia.

Fun facts about Peru: 1. You cannot flush toilet paper down the toilet. The sewers here can’t process it. It must be put in the trash beside the toilet. To answer your question, yes the bathroom usually smells wonderful. 2. They don’t have heaters anywhere (I wear a sweatshirt and pants to bed) 3. Showers create “hot” (more like just above freezing) water with an electric shower head. This brings me to my next fun fact, 4. Peru doesn’t have that great of wiring. If the cold shower doesn’t wake me up in the morning, then the loose wires to the shower head will provide an unexpected electric shock that is sure to jump start my day.