Ending with Machu Picchu

Hey everybody,

As George Costanza once said, it's important to leave on a high note.  The fact that I left Machu Picchu for the end of my trip, though, happened more out of laziness rather than purposeful timing.  I kind of didn't want to go, actually.  Machu Picchu is, by far, the most expensive destination in Peru.  Then I sat down and figured out that during my time here I've spent almost 80 hours on a bus.  To be honest, after six weeks of almost constantly moving around the last thing I wanted to do was to go on another long bus or train ride, but I knew if it ever came up in conversation that I spent a month and a half in Peru and didn't go to Machu Picchu people would give me all sorts of crap about it.  So yeah, I decided to go to one of the seven modern wonders of the world because I didn't want my balls busted.

I almost bailed out on the whole thing during a tour of the Sacred Valley.  We got stuffed into a bus early in the morning and spent the next six or so hours being hurriedly shuttled between touristy handicraft markets and overcrowded Inca ruins.  The guide was a friend of a friend who said he'd get us into the ruins at a discount but as he tried to get us through the ticket office at Ollantaytambo we got busted for trying to jump the line and kicked out.  Then on the cramped train to Aguas Calientes a Brazilian guy sitting across from me spilled a cup of hot coffee on my backpack which happened to be on my lap because there was no place else to put it. So with a moist lap and a backpack full of clothes smelling like French Roast, I pulled into Aguas Calientes thinking screw it, I'm going to enjoy Machu Picchu as much as I can.  And I did.

There are quite a few people that leave Aguas Calientes at 4AM in order to hike up a couple of hours and see the sun rise upon Machu Picchu.  I am not one of those people.  After hopping on the 7AM bus we rode up through the misty morning until we reached the main entrance to of Machu Picchu, where every tour group is for some reason scheduled to enter the city at exactly the same time.  You'd think that the ideal conditions for seeing an Inca city atop a mountain would be a clear, sunny day, but I have to say that spending the morning and afternoon in the middle of clouds and mist gave the deserted ruins a certain haunting quality that made them all the more impressive.  Machu Picchu wasn't formed as a settlement, more like a scientific research community.  It looks like the Incas used the location to experiment with agriculture, biology and especially astronomy.  Many different types of plants and crops were found that are not supposed to grow at these altitudes and the remains of bodies of different animals have been found in various states of dissection.  Observatories litter the ruins along with sun dials and fixed compasses.  From the available evidence it looks like the Incas fled Machu Picchu in a hurry, probably because they started to run out of food.  Since not much was grown up on the mountain they relied on imports from Cusco and the Sacred Valley, and when the Spanish invasion began the imports dried up.  Historically speaking it's lucky that the place was abandoned, however, because it also meant that the Spanish never found it.  If they had, they would have plundered and destroyed it, since that's what they did with every other Inca settlement they came across.  The plundering didn't occur until several hundred years later when Machu Picchu was "discovered" by Hiram Bingham, a professor from Yale.  Connecticut is where you'll have to go if you want to see the majority of treasures that were discovered in the ruins and the tombs back in 1911-1914.

It's difficult to fully absorb the ruins of Machu Picchu though because you never have a single quiet moment alone to appreciate what you're viewing.  There is constant motion and ambient chatter all around you no matter where you go.  There is no quiet corner.  The closest I came to solitude was the climb up to the top of Waynapicchu, the mountain directly behind the ruins.  Only 400 visitors are permitted to climb per day so that keeps the traffic low, and on this day the cold and slippery conditions made it so that people didn't linger too long at the top of the mountain.  The view of the ruins from that high are spectacular, and you can make out the perhaps intentional shape of a condor in the outline of Machu Picchu.  The rains started pouring down at mid-day and most people fled the ruins for the shelter of the lodge or the buses back to Aguas Calientes.  I waited them out for a while so that I could hike down the mountain and finally got my time alone with nature.  I wouldn't say that it was the most spectacular place I've ever seen in my life, but there was something about that place that makes you want to leap out and wrap your arms around the mountains.  I'm not sure how else to describe it.

After that it was a couple more days in Cusco and then Lima.  I don't have much to tell you about these two cities, to be honest.  I think that we had had enough of playing tourist and simply wanted to chill out before leaving town, me to San Francisco and Stefano and Caterina back to Europe.  The last few days we've spent most of our time relaxing, or wandering around looking for a good place to eat or have coffee.  I finally ate cuy (guinea pig) and it was delicious; a lot like rabbit.  I also tried Inka Kola and it was not delicious; a lot like bubble gum.  Peruvian drivers do not yield in any way to pedestrians and in fact seem to go out of their way to try and hit you with their cars.  Stefano and I have spent a large portion of the last couple of weeks daydreaming about pulling drivers out through their car windows and beating the crap out of them.  Peruvian people, while not unfriendly, are generally standoffish or grumpy with strangers though warm and affectionate with friends.  I'll miss taking afternoon breaks to eat Sublime chocolate bars with my brother, and I'll miss Cusquena malta.  Most of all, I have to say that Peru and Bolivia have surprised me.  Maybe amazed is a more correct term.  I had no idea of the variety of natural beauty that was contained in this region, and I've only explored the bottom half of Peru and the southwestern part of Bolivia.  Images of these places will stay with me for the rest of my life.

So now I'm heading home after almost 7 months on the road.  I hope nobody's expecting insightful words of wisdom or that I've had some major epiphany or something because that kind of stuff never happens on a schedule.  I've had a fantastic time and have gotten a lot out of my varied experiences... much more so than I initially thought when setting out.  It's also been nice to be away from a lot of the everyday crap like pop culture, sports, memes, and especially all the presidential campaign bullshit for the last half year.  Don't get me wrong, I'm happy that my hometown team won the world series, but I think I've seen maybe one baseball game this year and I don't feel like I really missed out on anything.  Above all, especially when compared to the other long trips I've taken, I'm returning home even more appreciative of the life I have and the place I live.  In the past when I left I felt like I was running away for a while, but this time I left not to get away but to go toward something... to have an experience... if you know what I mean.  I feel great and am happy to be heading home.  I realize how lucky I am not only to be able to take this time off and visit these places but to have all these fantastic friends that I've met with along the way.  The list is too long to mention but if any of you are reading this then... a big hug and a profound thank you for helping make these last few months so special.

A flower for the reader

I also want to take the time to thank those of you that have been reading my posts (I know there are at least three of you) but there's something about writing and taking photos and keeping up this blog that has kept me going these last 7 months.  I'm not going to deny that there's a little bit of narcissism involved (anyone who posts stories and denies it is a liar) but I want to let you know that it means a lot to me that people are enjoying or appreciating a thing that I'm creating.  I feel that I get a lot more out of writing these posts than people get from reading them for that very reason.  And there have been times where the posting has been what's motivated me when I've been lonely or anxious or whatnot.  Once I got going I ended up doing or seeing something awesome, all thanks to the push I received from people reading my stuff.  So thank you... it's meant a lot to me.

Like I said, I don't have any big words of wisdom with which to leave you.  When you're hiking, take the steeper path since it will probably have a better view.  Always try the street food and the local beer.  At high altitudes, cold showers suck.  Always pack toilet paper.  Other than that, I have a two-page list of stuff to do when I get back, the most important of which is written in bold at the top of the page... "Must Wash Hat"

Here are the pictures from Machu Picchu...

https://photos.app.goo.gl/VmaLNwG6MPj554We6

Take 'er easy,
Dave

Andes to Amazon

Hey everybody,

Greetings from Francesco and Claudia's Home for Wayward Italian Volunteers.  We've been using their Cusco home as our Peruvian home base for the last couple of weeks and will be here until our final few days in Peru.  Francesco and Claudia have been working here with the Amici del Peru organization for the last few years and have housed many volunteers from different organizations on the bunk beds in the spare bedrooms.  All I know is that it's only place I've been in weeks where I haven't had to eat rice and/or potatoes or drink instant coffee, it has a sometimes hot shower and a washing machine and simply for that... it is fantastic.

Llamas!

Stefano and I took Francesco's SUV for the weekend in order to travel several hours up into the Andes to visit Livitaca, the village where Stefano and Caterina have been living and volunteering since last December.  It only has about 2000 inhabitants and is pretty much in the middle of nowhere up in the mountains, mostly farmers and herders with their families.  Amici del Peru has been working in the area for several years on different projects from education to health to solar power.  We arrived just in time for dinner at the comedor in the church where Charo the cook put me immediately to work peeling potatoes.  A lot of the young guys that Stefano taught English live in a dormitory at the church so I met about ten of them.  After a year of living there Stefano knows pretty much everybody, so I met most of the shopkeepers, every kid who lives at the church, a bunch of farmers and the mayor.  Most people I've met in Peru give you a really limp handshake and don't look you in the eye when they meet you but the mayor was a notable exception.  I've also found I have about a 33% success rate when cracking jokes in Spanish with Peruvian campesinos, and that's only after I specify that what I just said is a joke.

The next morning Ste and I, along with Rony, Gabriel and Nilo, took the 1982 Toyota Land Cruiser owned by Amici del Peru for a day trip first to climb the Kora, the highest mountain in the area at about 4200 meters, then to Cini Ciri, a pre-Inca burial site.  Climbing a flight of stairs is tough at this altitude, at least that's what Ste and I thought until we went climbing with three guys from Livitaca, each of whom took turns climbing back down to where we were to make sure we weren't lost.  They probably could've climbed the mountain six times in the time it took Ste and I to get up there.  On top of the Kora there is an old dwelling that is uncertain whether it's Inca or pre-Inca but was probably used by someone as an outpost or as a location from which to communicate with the guardian spirits in the mountains.  There were, of course, spectacular views of the valley at this height along with sightings of some condors and the ubiquitous llamas.  Then we climbed back down and got to fix a flat tire on the Land Cruiser, or more like watch the younger guys fix a flat tire.

We then headed to the site of Cini Ciri, an old burial ground that has been freely accessible to the citizens of Livitaca... until now.  A couple of months ago the government of Cusco decided to make Cini Ciri a protected area, which is great because people used to just come and pick up bones and pottery and generally have their way with a burial ground that is at least 800 years old.  We had to sign in as visitors and were escorted by a guide from the University of Cusco who explained a lot of what they know and they don't know about the site.  The mounds are still directly accessible in that you can walk right up to them and take pictures but they don't like you to move things around.  They have to take a picture inventory of everything and in a few months will ship a lot of the remnants to the University for DNA analysis.  Still... I mean... you're walking right among bones in the midst of a pre-Inca burial ground.  It may be the only place in Peru where they allow you to do that.  The mounds are made of adobe and those of nobility or the upper-class are painted in red and white.  The dead were buried in baskets made of hay and dressed in clothes made of alpaca wool.  Above each mound is a small hutch where they would light a lamp with oil made of animal fat after each burial as well as on subsequent occasions.  There are probably a hundred or so mounds inside the cliff face lining both sides of the spectacular valley.

The rest of the time in Livitaca was basically spent cruising around or doing a whole lot of nothing, which Stefano explained to me is how they spent a lot of their year there.  One thing we certainly didn't do over four days was take a shower, because when it's almost freezing *inside* the house and you only have cold water, you don't take showers.  Besides, at this altitude... you don't sweat.  We didn't even sweat climbing the Kora.  Everything is dry, dusty and crackly, including us.  The tomatoes are delicious, though.

After a couple of days back in Cusco we headed to a dramatically abrupt change in climate in Puerto Maldonado in the midst of the Peruvian part of the Amazon forest.  Besides the 3000 meter drop in altitude there is the temperature adjustment to about 35 celsius with 98% humidity... a lot to take in after an overnight bus ride.  Speaking of overnight bus rides, I took a half a sleeping pill after we left the bus terminal and everything after that is a little hazy.  I remember the bus stewardess or bus attendant or whatever got on a microphone and said there was some kind of drawing for prizes happening which is not normal on a bus even in Peru, and she said something about being able to win bottles of water, or a mug or a kangaroo.  I think she said kangaroo.  Then she started calling out seat numbers and you could hear shuffling going on upstairs (it was a two-story bus).  My recollection is a bit syrupy but I remember her saying that the final number was being called and it was asiento #50 and Stefano and Caterina look at me and I'm like "What?" and then I realize than I'm in asiento #50.  So I groggily stand up and walk/crawl upstairs on a bus that is taking curves like an F1 racer and I see this attendant dressed in a bright red dress with a microphone handing me a ceramic mug and then saying in Spanish "Let's have some applause for... [looking at my ticket] David Bresci!" and I look around and the entire second story of the bus is filled with name-tag clad Jehovah's Witness missionaries applauding and staring at me.   It was either a horrible nightmare or I was unknowingly dropped in the middle of a Terry Gilliam film.  I swear that this happened.  I have the mug.

Holding a gator

Anyway... Puerto Maldonado.  We spent four days guided by Victor, a native of the area, cruising the jungle around the Madre de Dios river in the east of Peru about three hours from Brazil.  We stayed at the Monte Amazonica lodge which is home not only to tourists but to two parrots and three monkeys (Lalo, Bruno and Paco), all of whom immediately became friendly with Caterina.  The first night we went on a boat ride to spot caiman alligators and capibara, the world's largest rodent.  Our companions for the first couple of days were a Ukranian couple.  She was nice, he was angry, they fought almost the entire time and they were constantly late.  Stefano loved this.  On the second day we headed for a hike and then a boat ride on Lake Sandoval in a protected natural reserve.  The lake is home to caiman, piranhas, giant river otters, and various species of birds.  There are also a huge number of beautifully colored insects, especially butterflies, all around the reserve.  That afternoon while drinking a cold beer at another lodge we met La Loca, a tarantula-eating Coati that also likes cold beer.

Three monkeys

I don't know why we decided to go visit the native community... as I mentioned in a previous post I normally hate this kind of shit... but maybe the positive outing to Amantani softened us up.  Unfortunately, the visit to the Boras turned out to be the awkward, touristy, uncomfortable experience that Ste, Cate and I had been dreading.  We boated out to a hovel of huts surrounded by a small field of corn and yucca and waited a few minutes for the small family of six to saunter out dressed in rags and feather head-dresses with painted faces. After a welcome and some half-hearted singing by the grandmother and her daughter, the grandfather proceeded to play a tune on a small flute.  The poor old guy looked like he was about 120 years old.  There were about three or four times when he was blowing into the flute where I thought he might keel over.  There were a couple of other short demonstrations, shooting of bows and arrows, and then the hawking of trinkets, a few of which we felt obliged to buy.  They also had a spider monkey... 2 Soles per photo.  Anyhow, once that was over we had a nice, mellow kayak ride back to the lodge, then later that afternoon went for a canopy walk along a bridge set up between two trees atop the jungle.  There were some fantastic views of the top of the jungle and we saw a colorful family of macaws fly by from a distance.  That night Victor led us on a night walk behind the lodge where we saw several nocturnal insects, most notably a couple of families of tarantulas.  They are just as creepy in person as you think they'd be.

Puerto Maldonado was a very different Peru from everything else that we'd seen.  It was strangely reminiscent of SE Asia with the motorbikes and the tuk-tuks and the jungle vegetation and it was a very nice break from the dry altitude of the Andes.  I'm back in Cusco now with Macchu Picchu and Lima on deck, then after that it's back home.  Here are the pictures...

https://photos.app.goo.gl/LAKaoA5VKcvUyeCa8

Take 'er easy,
Dave

Unbelievable Uyuni

Hey everybody,

Anyway, as I was saying... altitude.  I spent a large part of the last week above 4000 meters (about 13000 feet) and besides the lack of sleep I think it also makes me constantly hungry.  On top of that there's the lack of moisture mixed with not drinking enough water and I'm thinking I'm turning into Man Jerky.  I'm pretty sure I was designed for sea-level operation.  Other than that I feel great, though.

La Paz

After leaving Copacabana I spent a couple of days cruising around the markets and parks in the Bolivian capitol, La Paz.  The city lies in the middle of a valley surrounded by hills and from a distance looks like a vast, orange sprawl.  It seems like every single building is made out of bricks so all you see for miles around is... orange.  Paris it ain't.  I suppose the upside is that it's big bad wolf-proof.  I don't know if you need to spend more than a day or two in La Paz.  The most interesting parts of the city are easily walkable and if you like items made of alpaca wool... well then you'll be in heaven.  I was expecting the Witches' Market to be something more smoky or foggy with strange old women grabbing at you with withered hands from out of the mist and insisting on telling your fortune.  Instead it's about one square block of small shops selling stone trinkets, herbal remedies, and yes... animal fetuses.  I found a restaurant that served a 4-course lunch for 10 Bolivianos, which is about $1.50, and then took a long walk to a nice little park on top of one of the hills with views on the city.  Love is in the air in La Paz... you can tell by the number of couples making out, especially in the park.  I sat up there for a couple of hours looking at views of the city and listening to music when "Night Prowler" and then "Livewire" came on back-to-back and I realized I was singing out loud .  I looked around and noticed that a couple of older Bolivian women were staring at me.  You know... the ones with the hats.  That was awkward.  Ah, how I miss Colonel Angus!

That night I'm waiting at the station for my bus to Uyuni and making small talk with some of the other passengers before boarding, wondering why there are paintings of the interiors of the buses, including the toilets, in the lobby.  I introduce myself to a Japanese guy named Hiro when a woman in front of me turns around and says, "Your name is Dave?  Did you book this trip through Coca Travel?"
Me:  "Uh... yeah."
Woman:  "Great!  They told us you'd be our Spanish translator!"
Me:  "Wait... what?"
And that's how I met Caroline and Martin.  They immediately warned me about the bus ride.  The first four hours over paved roads are no problem, but the following seven hours are another story.  The road from Oruro to Uyuni has not yet been paved, so it was like spending most of the night on a massage chair set at max power, and not in a good way.

I'm not really sure how to begin to describe the next three days touring around southern Bolivia other than to say that it's possibly the most amazing landscape I've seen anywhere in my life.  We set off almost immediately upon arrival in Uyuni after piling all of our stuff on top of a Toyota Land Cruiser (side note:  If I ever need to do anything off-road, I'm getting a Land Cruiser.  Those things are beasts).  It was me, Caroline and Martin, a Dutch girl named Charlotte and a Colombian couple Laura and Sebastian.  Our driver and guide Cristobal was a man of few words but man could he drive the shit out of a Land Cruiser off-road.  Over the course of the three day/two night tour I got the feeling that Cristobal was sort of a boss among the various guides.  He's older than most and when he flashes his high beams the other 4x4s move out of the way.  I asked Cristobal how long he'd been leading these tours and he said 10 years.  The last three years have been the busiest, however, and there has been a lot more tourist activity in Uyuni.  The town only has 15,000 inhabitants and the main industries are mining, salt processing, quinoa farming, and llama herding.  I asked him if more tourism was a good thing and he said, "Of course.  They're going to pave the road from Oruro to Uyuni."

A lone salt worker in the distance

Our first stop on day one was a train graveyard just outside of Uyuni where old steam locomotives have been left to rust seemingly in the middle of nowhere.  If it wasn't for the 30-odd tourists milling around it would've been one of the creepiest sites I've ever seen.  From there we drove directly on to the Salar de Uyuni, the largest salt flat in the world.  It's a bit disorienting to look out on to a completely white horizon and lose all perspective on relative distance.  If it wasn't for the faraway mountains it would seem like you were on the edge of the world.  Much of the salt processing for human consumption is done by hand with workers digging out piles of salt with shovels and leaving them for pickup later on.  We ate lunch inside the Salt Hotel which, as you can imagine, is made out of salt bricks.  From there we drove to Isla de Pescado which is an island in the middle of this salt plain made of petrified coral and covered with cacti.  That is one landscaping trifecta that I can safely say I've never seen before.  We drove across naturally formed hexagons that have been formed on the surface of the salt plains and spent the first night at another lodging made of salt in Chuvica at an altitude of about 3700 meters.

Desierto de Siloli

The second day I felt like we were traveling across the surface of Mars.  We headed to the small town of San Juan (elevation 3929 meters, 12,890 feet) for a pit stop and from there we never went below 4000 until we headed back to Uyuni the next day.  The terrain seemed to change with every mile.  I was lucky enough to have the front seat so when you see the photos you'll see a lot of the hood of the truck with the Toyota insignia.  I tried to do the best I could to capture what we were seeing but honestly there's no way it can be done through pictures.  We saw several active volcanoes each approximately 5,900 meters above sea level. We traveled to four lagoons, most of which were populated by red and white flamingos.  At Laguna Canapa I trounced across some black mud which, when it dried, formed this sort of dry, grey crust which looked and felt a lot like cement.  I don't know what those flamingos are digging for in that mud.  I don't know what could be alive in that lagoon at that altitude.  We drove across the red surface of the Desierto de Siloli to reach our highest point of the day, about 4680 meters (about 15,300 feet).  By the way, it's not like there are roads up there or anything.  All you can see are the tracks left from years of off-road tours... the drivers do this all by feel and experience.  One of the trucks in our group didn't make it to a scheduled meeting point so we had to double-back for an hour to look for them.  We asked Cristobal why they don't have radios or walkie-talkies or anything like that and he looked at us oddly.  "We have cell phones but they don't work out here so we travel in groups."  And that was the end of that conversation.

Laguna Colorada

As we continued on toward the Arbol de Piedra we stopped to catch a glimpse of a group of animals that are a cross between a rabbit and a squirrel called viscacha.  The arbol itself is a large rock that over the years was formed into the shape of a tree and is surrounded by several other picturesque formations in a rock garden and, luckily, an outhouse.  That's one of the reasons why, as I mentioned earlier, I haven't been drinking enough water... lack places to take a leak.  As many of you know I am a peeing machine so I've got to keep the liquid intake under control.  Anyhow, we ended the day by entering the Eduardo Avaroa national wildlife refuge to a striking view of the Laguna Colorada, literally the Red Lagoon.  We spent the night in an inn at about 4300 meters where the red wine at room temperature was still almost freezing, but they gave us a bottle for free so hey, down it goes.

Sol de Manana

The next morning we awoke at 4:30 to a spectacularly starry night sky.  I tried to capture some shots with slow shutter speed but I don't know if my camera is that good.  You could see some faint traces of what could be the Milky Way and I saw more than one shooting star.  Of course, at 4300 meters before sunrise it's what I would refer to as brutally cold.  I wasn't going to stay out there very long to lose digits in the name of photography but I will tell you that alpaca hats are the shit.  They totally work.  Anyhow, we headed out to catch the sunrise at the geyser plateau known as Sol de Manana at an elevation of a measly 4865 meters (about 16,000 feet).  As I mentioned earlier... Mars.  A field of steamy sulfur across a red rock surface as the sun rises across the horizon.  From there it was on to the thermal pools at the Laguna Polques for breakfast.  Normally I would've partaken of a thermal hot tub but a) I didn't have shorts or b) a towel and c) it was fuckin' freezing.  After breakfast we drove across the plain known as the Desierto de Dali because of the strangely abstract rock formations and then made a stop at the Laguna Verde, which is not actually green.  The upshot of this is that the Vulcan Licancabur casts a spectacular reflection across the surface of the lagoon which, again, I tried to capture in pictures but without much success.  From there it was straight to the border crossing between Bolivia and Chile.  I say border crossing but it's this hut in the middle of nowhere where trucks and buses from each country congregate to shuttle tourists back and forth.  It's cold, windy, desolate and beautiful.  We dropped off Martin, Caroline and Charlotte and picked up a couple of Argentinian women on the way to Uyuni that spoke Spanish at about 200 mph.

Flamingos in flight over Laguna Hedionda

This last day back to Uyuni was probably the least interesting visually but I managed to get some more information on the area from Cristobal and the rest of the group.  Quinoa was the staple food of the Incas because it grows between 3700-4000 meters, is highly nutritious, and only needs dirt and rain.  There are several salt mines across the salars which are used for mining chemical salts (borax, etc).  The miners live on-site without their families for shifts lasting up to 25 days.  There seems to be some sort of child trafficking problem in Bolivia from what the Argentinians were saying.  I got that impression at the bus station in La Paz where on the cctv every once in a while they would repeat a public service announcement warning people to be on the lookout for unaccompanied minors for this very reason.  It also looks like both Peruvians and Bolivians are fairly politically active.  Besides the frequent protests, you can't drive by one house outside of a city that doesn't have one wall completely covered by a slogan for one candidate or another.

Once back in Uyuni I only had a couple of hours left until my bus to La Paz which was then followed by a bus to Cusco, Peru.  I don't know if I can adequately describe how my body felt after three days in a Land Cruiser followed by the overnight unpaved hell ride to La Paz followed by another 12 hours in a bus to Cusco so I'll leave it alone.  Now I'm down to a measly altitude of 3300 meters.  Kid stuff.

Here are the pictures.  I don't think they'll do it justice, but it's the best I've got...

https://photos.app.goo.gl/QfZLwdLF7tHqwGpv5

Take 'er easy,
Dave

Up Among The Clouds

Hey everybody,

I've been speaking Italian for two weeks with my brother and his wife and Spanish with everybody else.  On the bus I sat next to a guy from Montreal who tried to explain the difference between the Spanish verbs tener and haber... in French.  I'm writing this in English.  I walked into my hotel in Copacabana and said "sawasdee khaap" to the receptionist which means hello in Thai.  All these damn languages are giving me a headache.  Of course, the headache could also be caused by the altitude.  We went from the Pacific coast to Puno (elevation 3800 meters/12,500 feet) in about a day and a half which is probably why I only slept about 2 hours total over the next two nights.  Puno isn't a particularly scenic town but it's not a bad place to spend a couple of days.  The whole reason for tourists coming to Puno, though, is the spectacular Lake Titicaca, the highest lake in the world.

Stefano, Caterina and I went on a two-day tour on the southwest part of the lake and on three islands.  The first set of islands, the Uros, are man-made floating islands that are made from 2x3 meter blocks of mud and reed that are tied together for several months until they form a single block.  Layers of dried reeds are then used to create a flat surface for the island and then the villagers proceed to build huts, mud ovens, and the rest necessary for survival on the island.  The whole process takes about 18 months and the islands last between 20-15 years.  It's a very impressive process, but the visit to the Uros left mixed feelings.  All the information about the construction was great, but on the other hand they immediately tried to sell us trinkets and blankets after the lecture.  Then the women sang a couple of songs as our boat was leaving... Vamos a la Playa and Row Your Boat.  It just felt a bit weird, a little too touristy, a little too put-on.  Talking to Ste and Cate they both thought that the residents only lived on the islands for part of the year and mostly for tourists.

 Let the party begin

Luckily that was our only such experience on the trip.  We spent several hours on the boat on the way to the island of Amantani, and it was one of the most scenically spectacular rides I've ever taken.  You are literally floating in a lake that's among the clouds.  I couldn't stop staring out at the cloud formations on this beautifully sunny day and thinking that this is exactly the reason you travel.  Once we reached Amantani we were handed off to the host family of Valeriana and Dionisio for a one-night homestay in the village.  Their family consisted of children and grandchildren, and they mostly spoke Quechua to each other while speaking Spanish to us.  The first thing they did was feed us, which of course will immediately endear anyone to me, and I had my first mate de coca (tea made with coca leaves).  We then went for a climb for a sunset view of the lake from the top of the island.  There are two peaks, Pachatata and Pachamama, each with a temple at the top, representing the two opposite forces, positive and negative, yin and yang, or at least the Incan version of it.  We climbed to the top of Pachamama, the tallest peak at 4200 meters which is about the same height as the Annapurna base camp in Nepal.  We were lucky to be relatively secluded since most of the others in the group chose the smaller peak and we were rewarded with amazing 360 degree views of the lake.  It gets cold quickly at that height though so we went back for dinner with the family.  Stefano got into a conversation with Dionisio and his son about how the whole homestay business works... they host tourists only about 6 days a month for some extra income but otherwise work the land.  The son also works sometimes as a fisherman out of Puno or has even gone as far as Lima for a period to work. After dinner Valeriana could dressed us up in traditional campesino garb and took us to a dance.   Holding hands and dancing in a circle to some traditional Andean guitar/flute tunes was fun for about half an hour but after that we just needed some sleep.  I suppose that was the tourisiest part of the stay on Amantani, but the whole thing was really low-key.  I think the three of us enjoyed our homestay much more than we thought we would.

The next morning we traveled to the island of Taquile, the first of these islands opened to tourism in 1978.  There are pre-Inca ruins on the island so it's been inhabited for quite a while.  Most of the farming is grain-based, quinoa and whatnot.  There are cows and chickens but all vegetables have to be boated in from Puno.  There were some excellent views from that island as well, but nothing compared to what we saw from Pachamama.

Isla de la Luna

After heading back to Puno, Stefano said to me, "Why don't you go to Bolivia?"  So I left Ste and Cate to head home to Cusco and I went to Bolivia.  I'm in fucking Bolivia!  Heh... it's just funny to me, I don't know why.  Anyway, I headed to Copacabana since it was only a 3-hour bus ride from Puno even though Ste and Cate told me I'd probably hate it because it's full of hippy backpackers.  They were partly right... it's some kind of tiny tourist town on the Bolivian side of Titicaca that's full of drum-toting, natural fabric-wearing, dreadlocked hippy backpackers.  It's also strangely peppered with older European tourists, and it seems to be some kind of retreat destination for Israelis.  Exactly the kind of place where I could fit right in.  I usually get a bit anxious anyway when I'm off by myself after having been traveling with people for a while and the weirdness and general unfriendliness of Copacabana was not really helping things.  In these situations I try to keep reminding myself that if I keep exploring eventually I'll see something fantastic, and the day trip to the Islas de Sol and de la Luna was the perfect tonic.  Isla de la Luna held an old Incan temple of the virgin that still seems to be used for ceremonies or prayers, as well as a picturesque dock with a spectacular view of Lake Titicaca and the mountains beyond.  On Isla del Sol I hiked through a village to the top of one of the mountains for more amazing views.  If I had to do it over again, I would've spent a night at one of the hostels at the top of the island, which is what I'd recommend if any of you are going to head there.  You can spend all day hiking around the island and/or just sitting on a patio overlooking one of the most beautiful lakes in the world while drinking a beer.  I might have to go back.

Hopefully, you like pictures of lakes and clouds...

https://photos.app.goo.gl/V1oto5fTe7MN73WDA

Take 'er easy,
Dave