Dia twelve
jimmy starting this one...
We have essentially completed the first main adventure of our expedition and a brief coll down in Cusco. This brings us to our second main adventure. We decided to use the same tour company as the Inca Trail, since they did not let us down last time. We woke up early on the twelth day to catch a bus to Puno, the biggest city on the Peru banks of Lake Titicaca. It started looking like it was just me, Jenny and a guy from the UK going on this trip. Then the tour company dropped us off at the bus station and thus ended our continued experience with SAS Adventures. Now that we realized that this entire trip had been pawned off on other companies, the real adventure can begin.
We found ourselves on an all day bus trip from Cusco to Puno, which included three stops. The first stop was at a little church somewhere in the middle of nowhere. It was covered in beautiful paintings and a lot of 24 karat gold... Yes pure gold on everything. Now I see what the Spanish were after. Outside the church was an adorable little golden haired puppy, yes everything in Peru is made of gold. This was my favorite random street dog of Peru so far. There will be more about random Peru street dogs after we return. The next stop was pre-Incan ruin site that had some unbelieably high walls and some beautiful scenery. The final stop was a museum that I found less than spectacular, but the guide did manage to contradict some facts we learned during our Machu Pichu hike. In general the bus ride was well organized and went smoothly. We were met by a taxi driver at the bus station and then swept away to the El Buho hotel, which had a lobby fulln of motorcycles.
Just before Puno, we past through Julieca. This is the headquarters for the Peru-Bolivia black market. This was the typ of city that I was afraid all of Peru might look like. I was quite pleased to just pass on through. Puno was much better than there but was clearly not the tourist center that Miraflores and Cusco are.
Dia thirteen
So this is the heart of the matter and the reason why I am writing this portion. Hi, my name is Jimmy and I hate embarrassing awkward situation. Nice to meet you.
The next stage of our adventure is to go explore Lake Titicaca. We hopped on a boat early in the morning and went out to visit some people that live on floating read islands. It was a nice chance to explore a different culture and learn about them in a somewhat structured manner. We were not entirely delighted with our guide for this portion of the trip, but it was not horrible. At times the islands seemed like they should be in in some war movie or maybe Waterworld. This was a very touristy place to go. Most of the people do not even live on the islands anymore, they just go there to work during the day, but it was educational. After these islands we sailed off to a "land" island.
On this island we were paired up with a local mother/wife/person who was going to take car of us for the the next day. This means she is going to introduce us to her family, give us a room to sleep in, cook us food, and show us some of her culture. I get nervous staying over at a friends house, and they speak English. I quickly tried to convey to this person that I only speak a little spanish and Jenny does not speak any (I do not know how to type apostrophies on this keyboard). She seemed fine with this, and since she does this every day, I guess it will be ok.
We arrive at her house and are shown our room. It is small but very luxurious compared to the rest of the house. Let me interupt myself now to point out that this place is amazing. There are patchworked fields overlooking a giant lake with the snowcapped mountains of La Paz on the horizon. Tourist would die for a hotel on this island. After unpacking and having not eaten since morning (8 hours ago), we head to their littl courtyard and meet 3 kids (7, 3, and 1 years old). Jenny and I used them as a coping mechanism for an uncomfortable situation. At one point Jenny thought I should ask about food, but I don{t know how to do this politely in Spanish. So we ate some cliff bars. About a half hour later we were told it was lunch time (4:00 pm). I hate fish, I cannot eat fish, and the though of fish makes me a little sick. We are on an island! Out comes a bowl of potato soup and a plate full of potatoes. I love this place. We also had some Muña tea which helps with altitude sickness. This island is about 13000 feet above sea level. After lunch I somehow figure out that our host will show us to our group so we can go watch the sunset.
We arrive at the local meeting place. The groups decide to play some futball. Local kids vs tourists. A solid 4-0 victory for the adult tourist. Ok the other team had a couple adults. I did get one goal! Then we went to the top of the island and watched the sunset, which will be documented in beautiful Jenny-pictures later. After this we walk back to the meeting place and have no clue where we should go next. We wander around aimlessly until we find out guide who shows us a boy who can take us home. This is followed by another quite edible but large dinner and a lot of talking. I guess I will say that they were speaking Quechian and not Spanish. This made me nervous scared and awkward. I didn{t know what to do and everyone once and awhile they would look at us. Eventually our host said we could wait in our room, which was awesome. Now to make up for me being worried about not speaking spanish , everyone thought is would be fair to dress Jenny up like a local in three layers of skirts and other air restricting clothings and then to make her go dance. I like Peruvian dancing. It involves holding hands and shaking your arms a lot. After dining, dressing, and dancing we went o bed in the frigid frigid night.
Dias 14
jenny now writing...
We awoke to a morning of pancakes and fear that we were going to be fed more food - our host mother liked to keep us well-fed. She then walked us down to the docks and we headed to another island in Lake Titicaca called Tequile. I honestly felt like we were walking along the mediterrean as the community was what I picures Greece and Italy to look like, except for the snow-capped mountains in the distance. We spent the day walking around the island and perusing the local woven goods. A relaxing day in all regards. We arrived back in Puno with time to walk around the city, which is definitely poorer than either Cusco or Miraflores, and book a bus to Arequipa with hopes of spotting condors and seeing the Colca Canyon. Today was my medical school^s graduation ceremony, so I can be counted as being an official doctor as of today, although I missed the pomp and circumstance. Signing off for now.
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