PUNO: better than we expected, Part 1

While Leah is busy typing up the rest of our exciting adventure in the jungle, I thought I would go ahead and discuss our last days in Peru. We decided to go to Puno, which is on Lake Titikaka (apparently pronounced titihaha) and very close to the Bolivian border. We wanted to get all of our stuff together for the crossing because we had heard it was a huge hassle for americans, so we were going to be as prepared as possible. Unfortunately for us, Bolivia had just decided to start enforcing their new rule about americans paying $130 US for a visa. They also decided that we needed to have copies of every single sort of documentation possible, but I will get to that later. First, our weekend in Puno!

We left Cusco on Friday morning and took a painfully long (due to lack of space and hangovers) bus ride to Puno. Basically everyone we talked to told us to avoid Puno, because it was a boring, hellish little town, but we decided to take our chances. We got there around 8 pm, checked into a nice little hostel, and went to dinner.

At the bus station we randomly ran into this man who worked for our hostel, so he arranged a tour of the floating islands and natural islands on Lake Titikaka for us. We basically would get on a boat, see some artificial islands, then go to another island and live with a Peruvian family for a night. Then the next morning we would head to one more island and go back to Puno.

We got up bright and early the next day and were picked up by a shuttle. On this shuttle there was an incredibly annoying group of Argentines, including one man who would not stop playing a pan flute he had just clearly bought two minutes before. He had a little piece of paper with a song on it, and kept trying and failing to play it. I wanted to kill him and desperately hoped he would not be on our tour. Unfortunately, this asshole was and continued to play his pipe the entire time, much to everyones annoyance. At least this is the only thing I can really complain about, otherwise we had a great time.

We climbed aboard a nice boat and were greeted by our tour guide, who Phil thought looked like a Peruvian Yul Brynner and who Leah and I found strangely attractive. Our first stop was the floating islands, which were artificial and made of reeds, which had to be replaced monthly. We got to meet the "president" of the island and got a tour of his hut and he offered to take a picture with Leah if she put on the traditional outfit of the island. Obviously she did. After that we visited some more artificial islands and tried not to step in the wrong place and fall through into the lake.

Next was a 3 hour boat ride (with plenty of flute playing) to the island of Amantaní, which is inhabited by about 5000 people, most of who have never left the island. We got there and were taken in by a family who had a spare bedroom with 3 beds for us. We were relaxing and waiting to be called to dinner when 5 year old Judith walked in and befriended us. She loved my silver bracelets and loved Leahs camera, so overall we were very popular with her. We enjoyed lunch with the family, then made the ridiculous decision to climb a mountain on the island to view the sunset. You would think we had climbed enough mountains for a lifetime, but no, we decided to do one more. We climbed Mt. Pachatata and chilled for about an hour, enjoying the view. Then we returned to our house for dinner.

After dinner we were told we were going to a dance at their community center. Not only were we going to the dance, but we were going to do so wearing the traditional outfits of the island. We put on big white shirts, colorful skirts, belts and shawls, and then realized we could barely breath due to the altitude and tightness of the belts. Despite this issue, we danced, took lots of pictures, and had a great time. Then we went to bed, because we were getting up at 6 am, obviously my favorite hour of the day, to continue on with our tour.

I think the most interesting thing about the island was that they had no cars and no dogs. We were looking at a school book with Judith and when there was a picture of a dog, she would point to it and say gato (cat) instead. I thought it was sad that she could not experience dogs, but Leah said she had no sympathy because the girl had about 15 pet lambs. I guess I can see her point.