Peru:
Lake Titicaca
August 1-2, 2009

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Puno
We had a seven and a half hour bus
ride to Puno. We alternated between dozing and listening to David
Sedaris. Although we were still at a high altitude, we were on a
sort of plateau with fields that were used for grazing animals. It
was slightly surreal to be listening to Sedaris’s vivid descriptions
of living in Tokyo for three months to try and quit smoking while
looking at pastoral Peru. But it helped pass the time.
The bathroom on this bus, while
not stopped up, presented a different challenge: the door could be
latched from the outside but not the inside. So while one was
trying to unbutton one’s pants, maintain balance, not touch the
toilet surface with any body surface, not spray urine all over one’s
clothes, wipe, and throw the tissue in the trashbin, one also had to
use 50% of one’s arms to hold the door closed the whole time. It
was difficult.
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Views on the way to Puno
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View of Puno and Lake Titicaca from our hostel
roof |
Our main purpose in going to Puno
was to see Lake Titicaca. We found the name irresistible. At
nearly 13,000 feet, Puno had the highest elevation of our trip. We
compared it to the moon because in the sun, it was quite warm, but
in the shade or at night, it was very cold. Although the
temperature dropped below zero at night, nothing was heated. They,
and we, dealt with the cold by wearing layers and drinking lots of
tea.
We arrived around 3:30, took a
taxi up a dusty and desolate street and checked in at Bothy
Backpacker Hostel. The taxi driver had pointed out Ave Lima, the
main tourist drag, on the way up. After dropping our bags off and
adding a few layers, we walked down to the square, where there was a
market selling handicrafts to tourists. We bought some sweet street
snacks from an old man, then wandered around looking for a good
restaurant. We finally settled on one that was around the corner
from the main tourist street. Zac had trout and I had spaghetti.
After dinner, we walked back by the square and were fortunate enough
to witness a wedding procession.It
consisted of the wedding party slowly walking down the middle of the
street followed by all the family and friends and a band playing
traditional music. The best part was that the procession had
been “announced” by firing a few fireworks into the air right above
a crowded square.
(click
here for video)
Back at the hostel, we bought tickets for a tour
to some islands on Lake Titicaca the next day. We spent the evening
drinking tea. It was too cold to even brave taking a shower.
Although we were in a dorm room, we didn’t have any roommates and
the hostel wasn’t heavily populated, so we had a good night’s sleep.
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Our hostel was up this road

Wedding procession
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We were the only diners in this beautiful
restaurant |
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Morning light on the buildings near our hostel |
Bruno
The hostel served complimentary
pancakes for breakfast, so that was a nice start. The lady who had
sold us the tour tickets took a taxi with us to the docks. She
pointed us on to the right boat, but we were the last to board and
it was one seat short. That made me a little irritable, because we
had shopped around for tours, and they all insisted that the tour
groups were small, the boats had nice seats, etc. But in the end,
they just cram as many people on as possible. Our tour guide was
Bruno, an unfortunate name that has been forever tarnished by Sacha
Baron Cohen’s character. Bruno was another guide who would say a
lot in Spanish and then just a little in English. He seemed to
think that one of his main goals was to teach us the name of the
lake we were on, as if we didn’t already know, as if it wasn’t
solely for this lake that tourists came to Puno.
Uros
Islands
Our first destination on our Lake
Titicaca tour was the Uros Islands. These are floating islands
built from the reeds that grow naturally in the shallows of Lake
Titicaca. The Uros people live on these islands. For me, this was
the worst part of the entire Peru trip—worse than my stomach
problems after the buffet in Urumbamba, worse than the bus
bathrooms, worse than sleeping in noisy hostels. Psychological
discomfort can often be worse than physical suffering. Yet I have
trouble articulating why it bothered me so much. But what kind of
writer would I be if I didn’t try anyway? In northern Namibia,
there was a group of people called the Himba. They are the ones who
are topless and wear loin cloths, who coat their body and hair in a
reddish mixture of something…many people viewed them as the “real”
Africa and tours there were very popular. Zac and I never had any
desire to go there whatsoever. I guess the problem I had with
visiting the Himba, and the problem I had with visiting the Uros
people, is that it just doesn’t seem right when the people
themselves, and their way of life, are the spectacle. Plus, I never
feel like I’m having an authentic experience. It’s kind of like
watching animals in a zoo, except in this case, the human animals
are aware that you’re watching them. Maybe I’m just sensitive to
this because when we were in a village in Namibia doing our
training, the kids would all gather around the classroom windows and
stare at us. I hated it. In China, random people would come up and
want their picture with us. At first I thought it was cute, until
it dawned on me: to them, I’m a Himba person, a freakish person they
want to be able to prove to their friends that they saw. Thank
goodness the kids in Namibia didn’t have cameras.
In physics, I believe, there is
some concept that merely by observing a phenomenon, you inevitably
end up affecting the phenomenon in some way, so its true form can
never be observed. This was definitely true for the Uros people.
We got off our boat and onto one of the floating islands. Very
short, fat women wearing extremely bright clothing greeted us.
There was a little demonstration area where Bruno and local helper
showed us how the islands were built. Basically, they carved out
the reed roots in blocks, then put a spike in the middle of each,
which were then tied together. These foundations were then covered
with crisscrossing layers of reeds. Their houses and boats were
also built of reeds. We noticed one house had a solar panel
outside, and Bruno said that was to charge a battery to watch TV.
Some people might lament this invasion of modernity, or somehow be
enamored by the contradiction of reed house and TV. But I wished
they all had TVs and I wished they were all wearing blue jeans. I
know I have no right to wish such things, but for some reason it
always bothers me that people are living in different time periods,
especially when I suspect that it is artificially so. Bruno said
the Uros people’s livelihood consisted of eating fish, eggs,
waterfowl, the reeds (we all got to eat one—it tasted like celery)
and tourism was their source of income. They sold trinkets and
weaving and the kids demanded money if they caught you taking their
picture.
After the demonstration, Bruno
encouraged us to buy things from them, saying, “We must teach them
to work, not to beg.” I know I’m reading way too much into one
innocent sentence, but that phrase bothered me for several reasons.
First of all, they wouldn’t be begging or selling trinkets if we
tourists were not here. Secondly, who are we to come here and
teach them anything? The way it was phrased was as if we
outsiders were somehow superior and had to teach them the ways of
the world. The audacity. But, upon further reflection, I realized
we’d embraced that very idea throughout our travels. I can’t recall
a time we ever gave a coin to a beggar, and believe me, we’ve
encountered far more than our fair share. Yet in Cambodia, didn’t
Zac and I buy a CD of horrible traditional music because “at least
these limbless guys are working instead of just begging”? And
didn’t we buy some note cards from another amputee for the same
reason? True to form, we did buy some trinkets from the Uros
women. Perhaps I selfishly hoped that they would save up for a
solar panel or some blue jeans.
Next, we were funneled onto a
little reed boat to be taken to another island that was exactly the
same as the one we were just on. (It was like a whole village of
tourist-oriented floating islands.) Three little kids got on the
boat with us and sang songs and demanded money. I ignored them.
They were persistent. I ignored them. They asked for money for
their school. I ignored them. I didn’t think the money was really
for school, and their songs were terrible—a butchered English
rendition of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star followed by a butchered
Spanish version of the song. The Uros people speak Aymara. But all
this ignoring wasn’t easy, because even though I felt justified, the
human element in me still felt guilty. Our tourist group’s attire
probably cost more than their GDP. The other irony I thought about
was how Zac and I donate to charities and aid organizations and
micro-lending programs like Kiva, yet take out all the bureaucracy
and we won’t cough up a dime.
The Lonely Planet guide
claims that there are more authentic floating islands of the Uros
people that have not been infiltrated by tourism.
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Bruno on the boat

Zac and Sera on top of the boat


no need for daipers

demonstrating how the islands are built

a solar panel outside a hut

inside a hut

eating the reeds

displaying a cloth for sale

A souvenir stand |

tourists boarding the reed boats to go to another tourist-oriented
island |

aboard the reed boat |

tourists wait on the island |
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Isla
Taquile
Freed at last from the floating
islands of tourism torture, we got back on our motor boat and headed
further out to a larger, non-floating island called Isla Taquile.
This island was at least big enough to absorb tourism and still
maintain some of its own existence. The floating islands had felt
claustrophobic when the 30 tourists outnumbered the local
inhabitants on each island. The plan for Taquile was to climb up to
the plaza in the center of town, where Bruno said we could observe a
local festival in honor of some saint (Fiesta de San Diego). We
were to meet at the church door at 12:30, when he’d take us to a
restaurant for lunch. Then we’d proceed down the other side of the
island and our boat would be waiting for us there. I think Bruno
was kind of a lazy tour guide, because I noticed other tour guides
actually telling their groups about things on the island on the way
up.
The steps up the hill were strewn with women and children
selling local handicrafts, and we had to stop frequently to catch
our breath due to the high altitude. Taquile would be a nice place
to live. The air was fresh due to the total lack of cars or
industry, the island was big enough to support farming, and it had
views of Lake Titicaca with snow capped mountains in the distance.
We looked at those mountains, which were actually in Bolivia, and
wondered if the French guy we met on the plane was on top of one of
them. He was a serious hiker, with crampons and one of those
magical sleeping bags that keeps you warm at 40 below. Not like Zac
and I, who exerted ourselves just climbing the type of hills and
mountains that would never have snow on top.
We huffed and puffed a little and
arrived at the center of town, on top of the island. In the town
plaza, a group of local inhabitants were dressed in colorful outfits
and were playing flutes and drums and shuffling in a circle. You’ve
all heard the ubiquitous Pueruvian flute bands; David Sedaris even
happened to mock them in the audiobook we were listening to.
Throughout the trip, Peruvian bands played outside restaurants in
the tourist districts in all the places we went, selling CDs and
asking for donations. It’s not my favorite traditional music, but
it does beat out Chinese Opera. The performance in this square was
somewhat authentic though. They weren’t selling CDs and there was
no place to drop some coins; rather a panel of grim looking judges
were set up in one corner of the square, and the audience was only
about half tourists. Bruno said they would celebrate
this festival for fifteen days. Could you imagine? Fifteen days
straight of Peruvian flutes?
Click here for video
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judges |
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festival dress |

selling handicrafts |

audience |
For lunch, Bruno led us to a
humble outdoor restaurant. It was here that we had one of our best
meals of the whole trip. First, we were given a delicious quinoa
soup and some wheat bread that we could eat with salsa. Then we got
our main plate, which had trout, rice, salad and some papas fritas
(fried potatoes, although I something translated it to “fried
fathers” in my head, just for fun). We drank Inka Cola during the
meal, and they served tea made from an island herb after the meal.
Perhaps it was just a normal meal, and we just perceived it as being
better, like how everything tastes better when you’re camping.
After lunch, Bruno told us about
how the men on the island wore different hats depending on their
status. The village leaders, which were elected for one-year terms,
had special hats. The married men also had different hats from
single men. The other striking thing about the culture on Taquile
was that the men all knitted. If a man couldn’t or didn’t knit, he
stood no chance of getting married. When a couple got married, the
wife would knit half a stole and the husband would knit the other
half. The men also carried a special knitted purse with their coca
leaves inside.
After lunch, we walked down the
other side of the mountain, through some very photographic arches.
We had a three hour boat ride back to Puno. On our way to the
island and back again, the boat driver was munching coca leaves the
whole time. He chewed through nearly a whole bag. On the way
there, he offered Zac and I some to try. We’d been drinking the
tea, made from these very leaves, for a few days but hadn’t chewed
them yet. I chewed a few; they were bitter and made my mouth a bit
numb. Then I fell asleep.
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Sera eats quinoa soup

best meal

tea |

Bruno |
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A man knits in the market |
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Puno
We needed to buy a bus ticket to
Arequipa, where we wanted to go the next day. The signs posted at
our hostel had said they could get tickets for us, but charged a
seven soles commission fee (a little more than two dollars).
Always willing to have a mini-adventure to save a few bucks, Zac and
I decided to try and purchase the tickets on our own. We remembered
when the bus dropped us off, the station had been near the lake
front. As our boat from Taquile neared the harbor, we scrutinized
the coastline to see if we could find the bus station. We thought
we saw it off to the left, and it appeared to be within walking
distance. When we disembarked, we headed past all the taxis and
tourist shops, and went left at the first main road. It took us
directly to the bus station after about ten minutes of walking. It
was almost disappointingly easy. In fact, it turned out to be a
pleasant walk on a sidewalk between a wide road and a wide, smelly,
wetlands that abutted Lake Titicaca. Some people were out playing
soccer and volleyball in the evening light. Volleyball is about the
last thing I would have expected in Peru, but they actually have (or
had) a very competitive women’s national team, that won silver in
the 1988 Olympics.
Once at the bus station, we looked
at signs posted at the various bus companies’ booths, trying to find
a suitable time to leave for the six hour journey. 10:30 would be
too late, 6:30 too early, we were Goldilocks in search of the “just
right” bus time. We were thinking 8:00 sounded good, but we only
found one bus that left at that time. Using my cave-man Spanish, I
procured two seats for us the next morning. Before leaving the
ticket booth, I carefully checked the times and dates on the tickets
to verify that they were correct. “See,” I said to an imaginary
Eddy, “that wasn’t so hard. It only took a couple of seconds!”
We took a taxi back up to our
hostel, dropped off our stuff, and headed back down to the tourist
street for supper. We decided to have pizza for supper, and found a
nicely decorated restaurant. We chose the table in the back. I
think we were cultured-out.
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men knit while watching the fesitival


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Back at the hostel, I decided my
hair, at least, needed a shower. I couldn’t skip another day, no
matter how cold it was. The shower at this hostel did not draw
water from a hot-water heater, like our luxurious warm showers up to
now had. This one had an electric contraption on the shower head
that heated the water as it came out. Or was supposed to. It
didn’t work. But I kept trying. After five minutes of cowering in
the shower corner while ice cold water came out, I asked Zac to go
find one of the hostel ladies for help. I put my clothes back on,
shivering. The ladies came, they tapped, they ran back and forth,
they flipped switches somewhere, and eventually I had a shower that
alternated between cold and tepid and occasionally, for brief
moments, hot.
The
Cougher
The incident that made us pay a little extra for private rooms
the rest of the trip.
Our second night in the hostel, it
was much more crowded. There was a bag in our room, so we knew we
had a roommate. I saw her go in the room once, so I knew which one
she was, but it didn’t seem convenient at the time to shout across
the hostel common room, “Hey, we’re roommates!” She ended up
leaving on an errand and didn’t come back before we went to bed, so
we never really conversed. The group was still viewing a DVD in the
common room when Zac and I retired early. If I haven’t emphasized
this enough, let me reiterate it now: the tile and concrete
interior, that seemed to be a popular hostel design, amplified
sounds, rather than absorbing them. The movie seemed to only grow
louder as we tried to fall asleep. In an act of true love, Zac
reached across the abyss and offered, “Earplug?” Never was such a
tender word spoken.
The movie more or less blocked out, I thought a
good night’s sleep was possible. Then our roommate came in to
sleep. Except, she didn’t sleep. She coughed and moaned all
night. You know how everything is worse at night, in the dark, when
you’d rather be asleep? Now imagine a stranger with a deep, liquidy,
persistent cough. All night. Followed by a little moan
here and there. What you end up picturing in your mind, while
trying desperately to sleep, is little green germs filling the air
and multiplying with each cough, spreading throughout the dorm and
infesting your own lungs.
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Common area of the hostel

hostel kitchen

our hostel dorm room
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The next morning, when Zac woke
up, he asked, “Is she gone?” I said yes. He added, “She should go
to a hospital.” I agreed. We ate our pancakes, drank our tea, then
got a taxi to the bus station.
To
Arequipa
We found a bus that appeared to be
our bus. It had the bus company name, there were people
outside it lined up, and the lady at the door that checks to make
sure you’ve paid your bus station departure tax nodded when I asked
if that was the bus to Arequipa. We were about to put our bags under
to bus and board, when a lady came and grabbed us and said that bus
was going to Cusco and we were on a different bus. She whisked us
back to the desk, where women were busily copying a passenger list
from one clipboard to another. She issued us a new ticket with a
different bus company and sent us over there. As much as I could
piece together, sometime in the 14 hours since we’d bought our
ticket, our bus company realized more passengers were headed for
Cusco than Arequipa, so they changed the destination of the bus and
sold us to a different company. Some might be annoyed, but I was
thrilled. These bus companies had the flexibility and adaptability
that Poopoo Rail was lacking. They could change as needs arose, in
a way that benefited passengers (more people who wanted to go to
Cusco now could) and benefited their bottom line (they didn’t have
to send a bus all the way to Arequipa with only a few passengers).
“See, that wasn’t so hard” I said to an imaginary Poopoo Rail
manager.
Our bus to Arequipa was stuffy and
stinky. Maybe everyone who had stayed in Puno skimped on their
showers, like I had. At on point, a young boy got up in the aisle
and sang, said a bunch of stuff I couldn’t understand, then appeared
to be selling candy. Later, an old man did the same thing but asked
for money without offering any candy in exchange. Zac and I ignored
them both, turned up our iPod and focused on David Sedaris’s story
about trying to buy a skeleton for his boyfriend’s birthday. Also,
at some point on our journey, we passed a broken down bus and picked
up some of its passengers, filling in the few empty seats on our
bus. Poopoo Rail would have just gone on by.
The bus ride afforded spectacular views of the dramatic and vastly
empty landscape. Golden fields lead to snowcapped mountains
and the blue lakes were pristine. |

Our new bus


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Mt. Misti |
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