Day 10 – Bus Ride from Cusco to Puno
Today we finally relax as we make our way from Cusco to Puno where we will spend two days exploring Lake Titicaca. There is no easy way to get there, so we opted for a tour bus that will take 10 hours but has 5 stops along the way where we can get out and stretch our legs and visit a few attractions. Pick up was at 6:30am and the bus left at 7.
Mini side story: To get to Puno, we passed by the turn off onto the rough dirt road to Rainbow Mountain. On our drive back from Rainbow Mountain yesterday, we learned about some of the towns along the way. There is a several kilometer stretch where each town sells something different. In one town, you see a bunch of ladies waiving yellow bags around – this is the bread town, and every shop sells bread. In another town, all the stores are restaurants are specific to “Cuy” (Guinea Pig) and another one was specific to pork. When our bus passed by these towns, we stopped at one of the bread stores and the guides bought a few enormous loaves of a sweet bread and shared it with the passengers.
Our first official stop was a small town that had a famous church in it - The Andahuaylillas Church, aka, the Sistine Chapel of America. The church was relatively small and IMHO, in no way resembled the actual Sistine Chapel, but... the interior was covered in gold paint and elaborate paintings, so there is that. Damon summed it up when he described it as equal parts cool and gaudy. Unfortunately, we were not allowed to take pictures inside so I grabbed an internet photo.
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| Credit: Internet |
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| Outside of church |
Our second stop was more ruins - specifically, the Raqchi Archaeological Complex. Truth be told, I was only functioning at about 14% capacity with increasing altitude sickness, so other than a few scenery pictures, I can't remember much about what they said. If nothing else, it was nice to get off the bus every hour or two to stretch our legs.
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| Cool building wall |
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| Storage bin and that amazing Peruvian blue sky |
Third stop was lunch - they had a family of llamapacas and of course I had to chase the baby around to try to get a picture. It wanted no part of that and kept running away from me.
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| Baby llamapaca cuteness |
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| Never ending vendors |
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| View in other direction |
And our final stop was in a town called Pukara where we visited a Lithic Museum. I cannot remember much of anything from this stop - we walked through a tiny museum, saw some stuff, and left. We made it to the town (city?) of Puno just before dinner, checked into a wonderful little hotel and walked the main drag to get some dinner. I think we were both just so tired - we didn't take any pictures of the area - but the main street was typical narrow, stone, no cars, lots of restaurants and a few town squares with churches and whatnot - it was already dark out and we were on a dinner/sleep mission. I chalk today up to rest/travel day.
Day 11 – Lake Titicaca - Uros & Amantani
On the agenda for today is a tour of the floating islands of
Uros on Lake Titicaca, followed by a homestay with a local family on Amantani
Island. We were picked up at 8am and
driven to the docks. Puno does not seem
to have traditional piers, but rather the tour boats for every company are the
exact same size and type of boat, and they are all just tied together next to
each other, so to get to our boat, we just walked across five other boats. The boat itself was basically a floating
greyhound bus – nice comfortable seats for about 25-30 people.
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| Docking technique - just walk across all the boats to get to the right one |
Our ride to Uros took about half an hour on nice calm waters. The islands of Uros, about 100 in total, are famous because they are floating islands built from the roots of a certain reed that grows in abundance in the area. The roots of the reeds are cut in blocks, tied together, and covered in the reeds in continuous layers until they form an island, the island is then anchored to the lake floor, so they don’t drift in the wind. Each island houses 4-5 families with about 1,500 inhabitants on all islands combined.
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| Toll booth to get into the Uros Islands |
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| Look back at boat and first step onto reed island |
Video: Nicholas & his baby bro playing
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| The reeds are used as both building materials & food. Here, mom is giving baby the top part of the reed to eat and clean teeth |
Each family hut was relatively small and generally had a queen-sized mattress and a place for clothes. Some of the huts had dried reed floors and some had wooden floors. For cooking, there was a flat stone placed with cooking fires on top so as not to burn down the island (side note – as the reeds dried, they will re-cover with green reeds to avoid fire hazards. We were told that the families generally live their entire lives on these islands and the men would go to the mainland (Puno) once per week for supplies. Sometimes, the teenagers would move to a big city, generally Lima, for the experience, but then would return to the simplicity of Uros. Of course, I had to ask about the bathroom situation – apparently each island has a little baby island nearby that is designated as the toilet, and they must use a boat to get there. I would not last a day. One interesting note – for as “rustic” as the islands are, they also have solar panels for electricity – an odd dichotomy.
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| Typical reed dwelling in background; buy some crafts |
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| Cooking platform - pretty small |
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| Dwellings with solar panels |
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| Local families singing us of to the tune of... row row row your boat. Seriously. |
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| Nicholas refusing to leave dad, hopped in our reed transport boat |
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| Bigger island with coffee shop, floating toilet, and, yes, stuff to buy |
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| Cool looking reed boat |
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| Waterway in middle of lake surrounded by growing reeds |
From Uros, we had about a 2 ½ hour boat ride to Amantani island where we met our homestay family. We had no idea what to expect. We were told that on Amantani, they speak Quechuan, so we figured there would be a lot of smiling and nodding. Luckily, as we later realized, they also speak Spanish, so we were able to muddle through. The families that were hosting us had one person come to pick us up, all dressed in custom dress. We were met by our host, Sonia. We shook hands and then just followed her to her house. I should reiterate that Lake Titicaca and all the islands are generally around 12-13,000 feet in elevation. My altitude sickness was quickly getting worse, so realizing that all the houses were built on a mountain was not awesome.
We powered through the uphill hike, snaked through little paths through small crop fields, and eventually got to the house. We were shown to our bedroom on the second floor, which could graciously be called “rustic” and shown where the “bathroom” was – downstairs and outside with no running water. Because I have this weird bathroom obsession… The bathroom had a beautifully tiled shower with a shower head, a typical sink with a faucet, and a toilet with no seat. There was no running water, so I have no idea why they spent money on a shower head or faucet… outside the bathroom was a giant barrel of water with a bucket for flushing and a hand wash station. The overnight toilet solution was a little pee basin left in our bedroom.
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| Looks flat. Wasn't. |
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| Peruvians tend to be on the shorter side... |
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| Inside our room, I could touch the ceiling. |
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| "Bathroom" with fancy tiled floor |
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| Front "yard" - they are working on a rock patio. Can see the barrel of flushing water, the bucket, and the hand washing station. |
Our bedroom was simple – 2 beds with a sunken mattress, LOTS of wool blankets because there is no heat, and a small table. There was one lightbulb on the ceiling. The floors were unfinished wood. We had a few minutes to unpack (ha) and we were ushered down for lunch. The kitchen/dining area was a small room with a table and chairs, a bench where they kept food covered with a cloth, one cabinet for dishes and other storage, and a small stove with two burners. Dishes were washed by hand, literally, in a small pan of water - luckily I didn't see this until day 2... Peruvians are very proud of their potato heritage – we have heard about the potatoes a lot – apparently there are 3,000 different versions that they grow, plus quinoa.
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| The unheated dining-room/kitchen |
Our lunch started with a delicious quinoa soup followed by a huge plate of several types of potatoes and a hunk of fried cheese and a mint tea, which I’ve grown to love. We were told that the people do not eat meat and there is a rule that all tourists are served the exact same meals. At lunch, we met the rest of the family – Wilbur (dad), Willie (10-mo) and another boy whose name I never caught (4 yrs). It was fun to watch Sonia and Willie as they had a game of saying “mama” “ima” back and forth until Willie started cracking up. We were able to converse a bit with Sonia & Wilbur and learned that they are 27 & 30, they built their house 2 years ago and are very proud of it, and they have lived on Amantani their whole lives.
After lunch, we had a few minutes to stare at our ceiling before the whole tour group (about 17 of us) met up to hike to a temple at the (sigh) top of the mountain. I was not feeling awesome but there was not much else to do, so I sucked it up and we hiked to the top. Almost the entire way up, we saw women selling their crafts and two pay toilets! It is hard not to feel guilty passing them all up, but we’ve been approached by literally hundreds of people trying to sell us stuff. At the top of the mountain, we were told to walk counterclockwise three times to release our negative energy. We did four laps just to make sure and to give us time to catch a beautiful sunset.
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| One of the toilets on the way up |
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| Top 'o the mountain |
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| View down the mountain |
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| Beautiful sunset |
We walked back down, and it was time for dinner. Temps were dropping and, again, there is no heat. We were prepared with literally every warm item of clothing, so it was not too bad.
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| Dressed for dinner |
Dinner consisted of some type of potato soup (delicious), mint tea (yum), fried dough (admittedly good) and rice. A little carb heavy, but we didn’t want to insult them so ate what we could. Our guide had been hyping the evening activities all day – the disco dance party. In authentic Amantani clothes. Hmmm.
Right about 8pm, Sonia brought us a pile of clothes. Damon’s was simple – he had a poncho and a wool hat. Mine was a bit more elaborate – a thick skirt, a white wool blouse (put on over a t-shirt, long sleeve shirt and my heated fleece vest), a thick colorful belt, and an ornate head scarf. And my hiking pants and hiking boots. Our tour group and a second tour group showed up to the common room, thankfully close to our house, and we all sat on benches surrounding the room while a band played Peruvian music. I was cracking up because all the women were dressed identically with jeans, leggings or hiking pants and boots under our skirts.
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| Our fancy outfits - with my hiking boots and pants |
They got everyone out dancing – basically walking in rhythmic circles and occasionally changing direction. This continued until I could no longer breathe, we would sit down, and then dance some more. We figure that once they played La Bamba and Hey Jude, it was okay to head home.
Video: Peruvian Dance Party
Wilbur was with us and when we told him we were ready to go, he led us in the pitch-black back to the house. The main sidewalk had some lamps, but the little footpaths to get to the house were just an accident waiting to happen. I whipped out the iPhone flashlight and barely made it without falling into a drainage ditch.
Video: The walk - in the light - note the stone "steps" we had to maneuver in the dark
Once the family turned in and shut off the outside lights, we had a breathtaking view of the Southern Sky. The milky way was perfectly visible as were millions of stars. I saw a shooting star that was surprisingly low down and visible. We spent a few minutes just staring at the sky, something we just do not get in a big city. I slept in all my clothes, and except for using the pee basin in the middle of the night, it was one of the best sleeps I’ve had since we’ve been here – a solid 8 hours, sunken mattress and all!
Day 12 - Lake Titicaca - Taquile Island
Breakfast was at 6:30am – 3 crepe like pancakes with homemade marmalade. Very tasty. We learned more about the island from Sonia & Wilbur – it is separated into 10 communities. Everyone on the island participates in the homestays and they rotate which communities house the tourists – two communities at a time, so they generally get guests every five days or so. We wanted to thank them for their hospitality, so we bought (at full price) 2 pairs of wool socks that Sonia had knitted. Wilbur did whip out a cell phone at one point and ask Damon for his WhatsApp info, and Damon thinks he heard the 4yo watching DirecTV, so I think they are doing alright. After breakfast, Sonia changed back into her traditional dress and walked us back down to the dock. We bumped into Wilbur, took a group photo, and expressed our thanks for their hospitality before we headed back out on the boat.
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| Sonia trucking back down to the boats leaving us in the dust |
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| Home made scarecrows |
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| Sonia & Wilbur |
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| Hard to see, but once a week, vendors come in and sell everything from food to cleaning supplies near the dock |
One hour boat ride to the Island of Taquile, an island that appeared to be just a mountain. I mention this because my altitude sickness has been getting worse – breathing has been difficult with any exertion, I’ve started coughing, and my muscles are continuously fatigued from lack of oxygen to heal. I’ve also had a few nights where I get a little bit panicky because it takes effort to fill my lungs. Damon assures me it is uncomfortable, but not dangerous. Altitude affects everyone differently – I’ve been fine most of the trip, but maybe the accumulation of high altitude is getting to me. Damon, who usually has altitude issues has been fine, although he has been taking the drug, Diamox, since Chicago. I was hesitant to take it due to potential allergic reaction, so didn’t start until halfway through.
We dock and they tell us that we are to walk to the top of
the mountain (about 45 minutes) and meet in the town square. We make it to the top, slow and steady, to
learn about the people of this island, who are mostly farmers and
crafters. We are told that just a bit
higher, we can see the famous temple, so we go – me coughing my way to the
top. At the temple, we learn about the
Andean cross and the influence of the Spaniards and Catholicism on the people
of Taquile. We are also told we can get
even more positive energy by circling the temple three times counterclockwise. I’m too winded for non-essential positive energy, so we
make our way back down.
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| And we begin the hike up the mountain |
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| Town square |
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| Part of the temple at the top top |
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| More temple - Spaniards put crosses up to try to change Incan religion |
Back in the square, we see a group of locals perform a dance with music and then we head to a restaurant for lunch, where we also learn about a plant they use to make detergent and shampoo. The plant looks a little bit like stiff rosemary. They smash it into a pulp, add a bit of water, and then wrap the pulp in a material which is then dunked in more water and squeezed out. It foams like soap, and we watched the leader of the town clean dirty wool with it. They swear this shampoo is also the reason that they never get gray hair. Hmm.
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| Dancers |
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| Weirdly awkward photo of us with the dancers |
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| Random sheep file into the town square - with no shepherd |
Lunch was, yes, quinoa and potato soup with either trout or a vege omelet. Finally – a bit of protein!!! After lunch, we walked an all-step path back down to our boat. We came across some workers who had dug up half the main path to put in electricity! The island was expecting to have electricity within the next 5-6 months. It was a really windy day so the waves were kicking up. Lake Titicaca is huge. Not lake Michigan huge, but still big enough to have rough waters in the wind. We had about a 2.5-3-hour ride back to Puno and the first 20-30 minutes were brutal as our little boat rocked back and forth. Luckily, we hit a spot where another land mass blocked some of the wind, and then we got to a smaller more protected section of the lake, which was more tolerable for the remainder of the trip back to Puno.
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| Lunch spot and me holding "coco candy" supposed to help with altitude sickness. I was downing them like, well, like candy. |
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| Taquile gets electricity in next 5-6 months; this was our non-OSHA approved hike back down with half the sidewalk torn up to lay cables |
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| Gratuitous photo of Damon because he took all the others today |
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| Look back up the mountain |
Throughout this 2-day trip, we had the opportunity to talk
to most of the people on our tour at some point – I think there were 17
tourists. The most interesting thing to
me was the diversity of the people. We
were the only Americans. Two 22yo boys
from Ireland who were on a 4-month trip ending in Canada where they were going
to work at a sailing camp – they were awesome to talk to. A family of three from France. A woman from Montreal who may have been
travelling with a guy from France, or they just hung out for language purposes,
a 21yo girl traveling on her own from Denmark, an upper 20s Russian girl
traveling alone from Chile, an Italian couple, a couple from Paraguay, a guy
from Japan travelling alone. And
everyone except for us and the Irish lads spoke multiple languages including Spanish
and English. We were probably the oldest
on our tour, but it was great chatting with everyone and learning their stories
and where everyone had been or is going.
One thing I can say is that we had the shortest trip by far at
2-weeks. Most people were out for a
month or more.
Back to Puno around 3:30, we had some time to kill. Forgot to mention that our original plan had
been to fly out of the closest airport, Juliaca, about 45m away. Three days ago, we received a notice that the
airport was closed due to emergency runway repair and our flight was canceled. The nearest airport is Arequipa, which is an
overnight 6-hour bus ride away, where we can then catch a flight back to
Lima. The bus didn’t leave until
10:15pm, so we went back to our hotel to see if we could get a room for a few
hours, which they obliged. We showered,
rested, went for dinner, and made our way to the bus station at 9:30.
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| Pretty fountain |
The bus station was a madhouse of confusion. We thought we had e-tickets, but when we
found the bus counter, they told us we needed something printed. I had to email the e-confirmation to the guy
(not the company) so he could print out something, write on it, and then print
out a totally different receipt that said “e-ticket” on it. Huh?
He told us to go to gate 6 which was just mass confusion. We tried to get to our bus at 10pm and they
told us we had to pay some fee, so we went back into the station, found the right
counter and paid the equivalent of about $.40 to get stickers on our receipt,
made our way back to the bus area (10:09pm), found the only bus that said
“Arequipa”, tried to board, wrong bus company, panicked because it is now
10:14. Found a man who helped us to a
bus from the right company, going to Cusco, and realized that nothing is on
time and our bus was still in the holding yard.
Phew. At 10:30, our bus shows up
and ironically, the Russian girl from our Lake tour was also on it, sitting in
our row. We stow our bags and board.
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| Before the bus started moving |
The bus is a 2-decker “VIP” bus. The seats were quite comfortable – wide with a 160-degree recline. They also had curtains between all of the seats, and it was quiet because everyone immediately went to sleep. Unfortunately, we were on the second level and there is not a straight road in all of Peru. The rocking back and forth and the stopping and starting was brutal. It was so bad that we emptied my toiletry Ziploc baggie because I was so sure I was going to throw up. My mental mantra was that every mile was downhill, and each minute was getting me closer to sea level. Somehow, I managed to fall asleep for a few hours. Damon said he never did and was constantly assessing the roll threat and how to escape the bus. The number of people travelling on these little roads at 3am is unbelievable.
Days 13 - 16 - Maido & The big travel blur
We arrived in Arequipa around 4:45am, found a taxi, and
headed to the airport, which was still mostly closed. We were allowed inside but had to wait until
6:00am before anyone would check our bags.
We found our way to the gate, had a cup of coffee and a bite to eat (Note for later - Damon had an airport ham sandwich),
boarded our 8am flight, and finally arrived in Lima around 9:30am. We got a taxi and arrived (play Hallelujah
music here) at the Hyatt Centric (Hyatt is my happy place) at 10:30am. 12 hours of travel. We were upgraded to a suite (more Hallelujah
music) thanks to my last year of status from pre-pandemic travel and were
ushered to the breakfast buffet even though it had just closed. We were fed, coffee'd, and eventually brought
to our room. Having spent the last two
nights in a rustic saggy bedded room where I peed in a basin, and on a rocking
and careening overnight bus, having a hot shower with a robe and slippers, a
tub that can fit 3 people, a bathroom with a door, a toilet seat AND toilet
paper, a proper couch, and a comfy bed was a dream. We enjoyed the comfort and luxury all
afternoon and never left the room.
Elevation note – only a few hours at sea level and I’m a
whole new person. Shortness of breath is
completely gone, and the coughing is much diminished as the fluid is working
its way out of my lungs quickly. It is a
miracle. I demonstrated my newfound
health to Damon by vigorously drying my hair with a towel and not having to
stop to catch my breath. Yes, that
happened.
While we are wrapping up our trip and agreed that Lima was
about resting and relaxing, we had one big event planned. Several months ago, I booked a reservation at
a “50 Top Restaurants in the World” – Maido – an Asian/Peruvian fusion
restaurant. We were going to get the
13-course tasting menu. The reservation
I could get was at 4:30pm. We skipped
lunch to ensure we were good and hungry and we still had enough time to digest
post meal. We put on our fancy
non-hiking clothes (first time this trip) and Ubered to the restaurant. Everything started off great – each course
was an amazing combination of flavors.
They instructed us on what each course was and how to eat it (one bite,
with big spoon or by hand, etc.). I picked out a few of the prettier presentations - no clue what was in them!
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| Rated #7 by the World's 50 Best |
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| This one I remember - raw tuna with duck on top that was torched tableside to carmelize. OMG |
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| Dessert |
We spent a lot of time at the restaurant talking about just
how lucky we are to live where and how we live.
We talked a lot about the poverty we have seen here in Peru and whether
the people of Uros or Taquile, or the family we stayed with on Amantani – are
they poor? Are they happy? What if they do not know that there is a
different way of life with hot water and electricity. Is a simple life stress free? They do seem proud of what they have. They have sustained life for hundreds of
years in the same way. Is that
poverty? It does make for interesting
conversation, that is for sure.
Around course six, Damon started to not feel well. He left a few times and we determined he may have gotten some type of food poisoning (airport ham sandwich ???), although not from this restaurant as I was fine. He stayed through about course 8 but did not eat anything else, and then said he had to leave immediately but that I should stay. Given the non-refundable cost of the meal, I agreed to stay and enjoy the last few courses on my own.
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| My dinner date :( |
The food was
fantastic – all 13 courses, but it was a total bummer that I could not enjoy
the end with Damon. I got back to the
hotel around 7:30pm and he was already asleep.
I just watched some Netflix before turning in. Back to civilization!
Next day - Damon was sick as a dog all day and never got out of bed. I relaxed, Netflix'd, read, wrote, and never left the hotel room.
Next day - Damon feeling better, we had breakfast and walked around Lima seeing some of the nearby sights - cliffs, the famous Parque del Amor, a cliffside shopping mall, basic city stuff. Damon overdid it with a hamburger and some weird fruity drink and by the time dinner rolled around, he was hit with round two and left me, again, in a restaurant by myself. Our flight was at 1am, so we killed time at the Hyatt before catching a taxi to the airport where Damon curled into the fetal position on some chairs until we took off. Rather uneventful flight to Houston, couple hour layover, then finally back to Chicago around 2pm.
All in all - Peru is one of the most naturally beautiful places I've ever visited. The people are very nice and everything is incredibly inexpensive. The constant barrage of people trying to sell was, at times, not awesome - but we do our best to spend where we can to support the locals. Highly recommend this as a destination, but learn some basic Spanish as fewer people than we expected spoke English.
Until next time...
