Puno - Lake Titicaca

Yesterday was a mixed bag, with some high points and some really low points.

The first two-thirds were pretty miserable. I woke up at 4:45am (an hour before the alarm was to sound) and could not go back to sleep. At firs, it was just a question of needing to use the facilities. But I contunued to toss and turn and started to worry about some work emails that had come in that needed some attention. So I took my Blackberry into the bathroom and took care of the emails that needed to be addressed. Once done, my mind was at ease, but, sadly, my body no longer was.

I felt nauseous, weak - in a word, horrible. And it was getting worse the longer I was awake. Not a good thing when you're about to jump on a bus for six hours through the desolate Andes. (Although I did feel some solace, on that front, when I started throwing up and discovered that my stomach was already empty - as long as I didn't eat anything, I hoped, I wouldn't need a barf bag on the bus.)

Naturally, I grabbed my medecine bag and took some of everything that made sense. It seemed to work pretty quickly and, although I still felt awful, at least my system settled down for the bus ride. (Alas, not so for Amanda: she didn't start throwimg up until we were on the bus.)

Waiting in the freezing Cusco bus station

Sick and cold, the bus ride was, to say the least, a slog. It didn't help that they ran an American movie with Robin Williams and John Travolta that is one of (if not the) worst series of low-brow cliches and crude humor that has ever called itself a movie. I wanted to gnaw off my arms and legs and gauge out my eyeballs with spoons (presumably in reverse order).

Pit-stop in the middle of nowhere

When we got to Puno, however, things changed dramatically for the better (despite the town's being a dirty, skeezy place). We paused in the bus station to consult the guidebook and pick a hostel, seetling on a posada called Kusiilo Posada. As we looked for it on the map, a little man approached asked if we needed a place to stay. I waved him away, as I usually do the many touts that descend upon gringos with open maps - but then I saw the card he was holding: Kusilla Posada! We took him up on the offer immediately.

Face to face with a dragonfly on the way out
of the bus station
(Sylvestre is in the background)

Street in Puno

Sylvestre, as the little man called himself, became our trusty right-hand man. He helped us get tickets for the next day's trip to Arequipa, nabbed us a cab from the station to the posada, and facilitated our entry there.
Not that we would have needed his help to be welcomed there. Jenny, the proprietress welcomed us -- indeed attended to us throughout our stay -- with a level of warm, sincere hospitality and care that I have never received before, anywhere. She was like our mother, grandmother, and auntie all in one. She offered us some local coca tea (made from coca leaves) and made sure we were comfortably settled into our room. She counseled us on dressing warmly, asked us about our travels,fixed us breakfast the next morning (including some delicious fresh squeezed orange juice and the best rolls we've had in Peru), and sent us on our way with hugs and kisses and recommendations for the best Peruvian chocolates, and an invitation to come again soon. After leaving, Amanda and I both remarked that Jenny's personal warmth more than compensated for the lack of heat and hot water.

Now back to Sylvestre. While we warmed ourselves with Jenny's coca tea (which is reputed to qicken acclimation to the altitude, and which tastes like leaves), we told Sylvestre and Jenny that we only had the afternoon to see the town and Lake Titicaca. After expressing their dismay at such a short stay, the went into full planning mode. Sylvestre said that for 25 soles he could book us 4:00pm a boat tour to the floating islands that would get us back to town around 6:30pm; all cab fare included.

I told Sylvestre that his proposal sounded good but we weren't going anywhere without eating something. Amanda and I had eaten nothing but a handful of Ritz crackers since getting on the bus in Cusco (and nothing before that), and now that our stomachs were more settled, we were starving. This put our tour somewhat in jeopardy because it was already 3:40pm and food in Peru is not quick -- even the simplest meals have taken hours.

Realizing we were serious about this eating business, Sylvestre bundled us off first to a restaurant that offere sandwiches and fought with the chef in an effort to get him to serve us something quick that we could take away. The chef refused, so Sylvestre bundled us off to some shacks by the harbor where we got some cheese sandwiches. They were incredibly basic (two pieces of white Wonder bread with some squeaky white cheese), but in our semi-starved state they were delicious and devoured in a minute. Having thus caaried through on his promise to feed us, Sylvestre delivered us to the dock, where we boarded the boat to the islands. We never saw Sylvestre again, but we sure appreciated his help. With us assistance, we accomplished everything we had hoped to do at Lake Titicaca in the space of a few hours.

Cheese sandwiches!

As for the boat tour, it was well worth the rushed lunch and couple hours of further exposure to the cold.  We piled into a little boat with about ten other people - a group of Brazilians, an Argentine, and some Americans.  Our guide, Walter, spoke very fast Spanish and equally fast (and nearly unintelligible) English.  He took Amanda under his wing immediately, showing her lots of special attention. I, on the other hand, was of very little interest. His only comment upon learning my name was to point out that there was an animal called "Jack" (it took me a minute, to realize he was reffering to the yak).
 




On the boat

The lake itself is beautiful in an austere, high-desert way. There was very little vegetation along the shore, so the lines were very crisp and clean. The contrast between the silvery water, the tawny hills and the dark grey clouds was lovely.

Lake Titicaca

In contrast, the vegetation int the lake was quite abundant. There were great swaths of reeds growing in the shallower portions of the lakebed. Amomg those reeds swam a lot of waterfowl that I didn't recognize, but which had brightly colored heads on dark bodies.

It is from these reeds that the famous floating islands are made. For the past 900 years, the indigenous people have been building and living on what are essentially giant rafts made of the root-blocks of the reed plants, which are then anchored in place and surfaced with fresh cut reeds. On top of these floating islands the people build their thatched huts and boats, all made from the same native reeds. Groups of six or eight families (or about 25 or 30 people) lived on each island.



The village

It was fascinating to see how the islands were made and to see how the people lived on them. It could not have been easy. The huts were mighty thin for the cold, and the bathroom islands were only accessible by boat. Food was cooked on clay stoves set atop slabs of mud to prevent the reeds from catching fire. The boats, huts and indeed the entire island were in a constant state of deterioration and renovation as the reeds decayed and had to be replaced.

Building a model island

Stove on mud platform

Building a reed boat

Apparently they don't always use reed boats

It was clear, however, that much of this way of life was preserved and presented for the sake of the tourists. The business model was to get tourists on the islands, give a short presentation on how the islands are made, and the press the captive audience to purchase trinkets and textiles. Which was a little annoying but not without its amusements: One woman went so far as to pull Amanda into her hut and dress her in a full native outfit, including skirt and bowler hat (which I think was quite a feat of determination, given the difference in size between the two, plus the many additional layers Amanda was wearing).

After the island tour, which was thankfully short, we headed back into town and got some dinner. We invited some Americans who had been on the boat to join us, so we had the pleasure of company for dinner. There were three of them: Laura and Devin, both from San Diego, a high school art teacher and a recently unemployed digital media designer, respectvely. And another Devin, a newly-minted graduate of UT Austin who was traveling before starting work with some geo-services company. They were very pleasant and told us about their travels in Bolivia (where they had met up, and from which they had just come). It sounds like Bolivia is not that nice a place, some considerable distance behind Peru in its development (in fact, the description reminded me of Guatemala). The Devin from Texas was particularly amusing: He was trying so hard to be a hippie-spiritual, faux-Marxist backpacker, but kept slipping back into a regular, somewhat naive American kid. My favorite parts of the conversation were when he told us that the ruins at Sacsaywaman in Cusco were his absolute favorite Peruvian ruins (despite the fact that he'd seen none of them) and insisted that there was a famous 11-sided stone in one of the walls (despite our informing him that the famous stone has 12 sides and is located in town, rather than up in the ruins). Also he is convinced that the Incas cut and moved the large stones using sound and something to do with the Fibonacci sequence. (Riiiiight...) We asked him if he thought they might have used chisels and he said absolutely not, it HAD to have been sound waves -- he'd read a book about it.

With that, we trundled back out into the night, wishing bon voyage to our dinner companions and heading back to our hotel.

More Photos

So cold!

As I type I am lying in a little posada in Puno, Peru (12,420 ft) under five woolen blankets (plus the topsheet), wearing three pairs of pants, two shirts, two sweaters, two pairs of socks, and the "sun thing" that Heather and Jordan gave me for Christmas on my head. I look like a cross between an AIDS patient and a refugee. But for the first time today, I'm warm!

Today we traveled from Cusco to Puno, on the shore of Lake Titicaca (the world's highest commercially navigable lakean which spans the border between Peru and Bolivia). By the time we left Cusco at 8:30am (after waiting outside for the bus for over an hour), it was 41 degrees Fahrenheit and raining steadily. Conditions weren't much better on the bus, so for the next six hors we sat and froze in our seats. (Only too late did I remember that I had an additional sweater packed in the very bottom of my pack - because I thought I would never need it.)

The rain had stopped by the time we got to Puno, and the remaining hours of sunlight offered some psychological warmth even if the temperature hadn't changed. Once the sun went dow, however, the temperature dropped steadily. It's probably going to get into the mid to low thirties before morning. (Apparently last night was even colder: some fellow lodgers said it snowed.)

Needless to say, our stay in Puno has been an exercise in getting warm. The first thing we did was add a layer of clothes (for me, another pair of pants and that precious sweater) before heading out on a very chilly boat tour of the lake's famous floating islands (which will be the subject of a separate post). Upon return to terra firma, we found a pizzeria with a roaring fireplace and hot chocolate on the menu. Alas, just as we started to thaw out, a troop of well-bundled Germans showed up and started complaining about the smokiness from the fireplace, causing the proprietor to open the window. (Oh, how we cursed them!)

The walk back to the hotel sucked any newly acquired warmth from our bones; I was shivering quite a lot by the time we got home. With no heat in the room, we knew that it would be a miserable night if we didn't get warm. So on with another layer of clothing (I'm wearing pretty much everything I packed) and under the covers.

After a few minutes: Warmth! It's only 8:30pm, but as far as I'm concerned, this day is over. No way I'm getting out from under these covers until tomorrow morning!

P.S. I slept really well and toasty warm until the alarm went off at 5:45am. At which point we discovered not only that the room was just as cold as the night before, but also that there was not a drop of hot water. I risked brain freeze to wash my face and hair, but decided to rely on a fresh application of deodorant for the rest.

Cuzco - Day 2

By comparison to the past two days, today was downright calm.  We slept in later than usual (getting up at 9am) and spent the rest of the day taking care of basic needs (laundry, some groceries), additional travel plans (bus tickets to Lake Titicaca, our next destination), and sight-seeing around town. 

In particular, we went to the Sacsaywaman ruins that sit on a hill above town.  These were part of an enormous military fortress built by the Incas in connection with the town of Cuzco (which was their capital city).  We learned that the city was laid out as the head of a puma, with the zig-zagging walls of the fortress representing the teeth.  The ruins were unfortunately little intact due to cenuries of pillaging of stones for building materials in other structures, but even so they were impressive.  The sheer size of the stones that remained and the scale of portions of the walls that still stood were pretty awe-inspiring.  It doesn't surprise me that the Spaniards had a hard time believing that they were built by human hands.







There were llamas grazing around the ruins

We also visited a museum of pre-columbian art, which turned out to be a real jewel of a museum.  It's housed in a former colonial mansion built around an internal courtyard, and it contains a small but well-curated collection of very fine artwork from the various Peruvian civilizations that preceded the Spanish arrival.  There was an array of materials, ranging from ceramics to wood to various metalwork.  By far the most impressive collection was the ceramics collection, which had some astonishingly beautiful and imaginative pieces.  There were also some really lovely pieces of sea-shell jewelry.

We had meant to spend the rest of the day visiting the famous cathedral and other churches in town, as well as a few more museums.  When we arrived at the Plaza de Armas, however, we found ourselves in the midst of a massive celebration.  Hundreds (probably thousands) of people thronged the plaza, many marching bands played loud and brassy tunes, and -- most surreally of all -- giant gilded saints floated through the crowds on the backs of teams of men.  We had walked into the middle of a procession of the major Catholic saints and were witnessing as they processed around the square.

I knew that these processions have been a Catholic tradition since the middle ages, and I had seen them represented in art many times, but I had never seen one in person before.  It was amazing!  Each saint had its own standard-bearers with banners declaring the name of the saint (we saw Saints Pedro, Jose, Ana, Barbara, Sebastian, and a few more that I can't remember), a live marching band, and a band of followers, all of whom were generally in coordinating outfits.  The saints themselves were gaudy, over-wrought, life-sized statutes standing on platforms, some of which required more than 50 men to carry (and even then the burden seemed significant -- many of them appeared to be struggling). 

These guys had the good idea of resting the beams on
padded bags around their shoulders

In addition to the spectacle of the procession, there was also the spectacle of the crowd.  There were ordinary Peruvians, of course, as well as tourists, like us.  But there also were hundreds of campesinos who had clearly come into town for the occasion -- and they were dressed in their finest.  The women in brightly-colored skirts and the iconic hats and braids, many with brightly colored woven cloths binding children or other burdens to their backs.  It was fun to see such traditional clothing being worn by everyday people for a real-life event in their lives -- they weren't doing it to please the tourists; this is really how they look! 

Since the procession was coming out of the cathedral, we knew there was no way we were going to get in for a tour, so we plowed our way over to the neighboring church.  It was built in the 16th century and in many ways (architecturally, artistically) outshines the technically more important cathedral.  It's a gaudy baroque church on the inside and out, with gobs of gold and some very gruesome crucifixes (all of which I was forbidden from photographing)

Iglesia de la Compania de Jesus

One of the creepier crucifixes

To our pleasant surprise, we found that we could watch the procession from the window of the choir loft overlooking the square.  So we stood up there and watched until the sun went down and we were too hungry and cold to continue.

At that point we walked over to some street-food vendors and got some skewers with chick and potatoes that were really delicious.

The street-food solved the hunger problem, but we were still freezing.  The temperatures, which had probably never gotten much above 60 all day, had dropped rapidly once the sun went down.  The last we checked, before coming in for the night, it was 46 degrees and forecast to get down to 35 over night.  I guess that's what we get for coming on vacation in the middle of winter!  (Oddly, these cold temperatures, with the rain and cobblestones, made this place feel very much like some of the cities I've visited in Europe.)

Now it's time for bed.  Tomorrow we get up early to catch the bus for a 6-hour trip to Lake Titicaca.

More photos

Wayna Picchu

As you'll recall from my post about Machu Picchu, I lucked out and got to be one of the 400 people permitted to climb Wayna Picchu on the day we visited.  It is probably the steepest hike I've ever done (without crampons and and an ice-axe, at least), and it certainly was one of the most dramatic settings for any hike I've done -- a double-whammy view of ancient civilization and a spectacular canyon.  But still, a hike is basically a hike, no matter where you are.  You keep putting one foot in front of the other until you get to the top of the mountain, and then you turn around and walk back down.  You get hot and sweaty and out of breath, and when you get done you think you probably could have done it faster or stayed at the top longer or should have brought more water.

What's really interesting are the pictures.  So without further ado, here are the highlights of the hike:

Wayna Picchu is the peak on the other side of the ruins

The Ascent

Entering the trailhead at 11:40am;
hiker No 381

View from the trailhead

Down into the first saddle
and up onto WP proper

View of Machu Picchu from part-way up

Steps going up

Nearing the summit; the walls seen from below

Looking across to another outcropping

 

Almost at the top, with Machu Picchu in the background
(my sunglasses are off because I was sweating so
much they kept running off my face)

  

The downward view from where I am standing
in the previous picture (and no, there were
no handrails between me and the void)

Final tunnel to the summit
(had to crawl on my stomach to get through)

The Summit

Machu Picchu from the summit
of Wayna Picchu

Same shot, but zoomed in

Me on the very tippy-top
(a little bit terrifying, but also really cool)

There were only a couple of buildings on the top;
the rest was just terraces



The view in the other direction
from Machu Picchu



More of the view away from MP

The Descent

Steps going down from the top
(yes, they really were that steep)

Returning triumphant, 1:00pm

Note: The guide said it would take two hours to climb the peak -- an hour up and an hour back.  I knew Amanda would be waiting at the bottom, so I decided to pick up the pace.  I got to the top in 30 minutes, took pictures and hung out for 30 minutes, and then made the return trip in about 20 minutes.

Another note:  According to other websites, the hike entails an approximately 1,000 vertical rise and is classified as a Yosemite Decimal System (YDS) Class 3 climb.