Jen, Carter, Mariza and I spent the long weekend up at Lake Titicaca, the biggest lake in South America and certainly the highest BIG lake in the world. At 12,500ft, the simple act of climbing stairs was exhausting and Mariza was sick until back at sea level in Lima. Carter and I felt the altitude but managed it with ibuprofen and coca tea. The air is clear, the water is deeply blue and the sky reaches forever. Being so close to the sun, it is often t-shirt weather though within minutes of sundown, it gets very cold very fast. Within an hour, it is time to put on your parka, your gloves, your chuyo (Peruvian knit cap).
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| Cheese, quinoa, chuño |
The trip started on a stressful note: we arrived at the Lima airport only to have Mariza realize she had forgotten her ID. At the last minute, we were informed that an emergency passport office existed in the airport and for a small "tip" the agent there printed out a copy of her ID and punched it with a very official stamp. An hour flight later, we landed on the bumpy runway in the airport town of Juliaca…the kind of dusty armpit of a place where fires burn inexplicably in the road and trash lines the river edge. Thankfully, we quickly got ourselves on the van for the 45min ride to the shores of Titicaca and the town of Puno, the jumping off point for much the region's tourism. Not a particularly quaint place, it nevertheless hums with an authentic spirit, populated by hearty outgoing people, reminding me for some reason of a frontier town in an old cowboy movie. A Peace Corps ex-volunteer lives there in a hostel, working at development through micro-loans, so we stayed the first night there with him and his very maternal landlady. Jen and I accompanied Alex to the 2nd story of a local bar for a nightcap before bed, though Alex says he does not go out a lot anymore because the intensity of how people drink there is too much for him. Indeed, people down high-proof pisco drinks by the pitcher, and the man I sat next to was swaying, spitting and pouring out the dregs of his glasses on the floor even though the bar below was clearly visible through the gaps in the slats. But all was convivial; I ordered a thoroughly pleasing hot drink, though I think it was just a steaming mug of pisco and Fanta. That, a fabulous garlic cheese bread, and the landlady's having warmed our beds with hot water bottles, put me to bed warm and content. In the morning, the landlady had coca tea ready for us, and proudly showed us some of the Andean ingredients in her kitchen: squeaky cheese, purple potatoes (from her own field outside of town), chuño (an Andean staple, potatoes freeze-dried in the permafrost and sun-blanched, with a shelf-life of many years), and flaked quinoa (eaten like oatmeal).
We set out in the morning to soak in a little of Puno's atmosphere and, luckily, it was market day. We walked towards the harbor, navigating busy streets alive with taxis and motorcycle taxis and pedaled taxis. For many blocks, the streets were filled with tarp-covered stalls and shoppers. The local ladies mostly wear bowlers with two little dingles that hang down, though some wear something more like a straw Easter hat. There are plenty of stalls selling cheap Chinese goods, so it's not quite the romanticized rural market one might imagine, but there are plenty of vendors who are selling piles of colorful potatoes, skinned goat heads and hooves (for the local hoof soup delicacy), fresh mountain herbs, and piles of quinoa and rice and corn. Then suddenly, we stumbled upon a crowd gathered around a true-to-life snake oil salesman. At his feet were several large boa snakes and a large turtle, apparently embalmed, cut open to show their viscera. The man spoke in the universal cadence of salesmen everywhere, like an infomercial, extolling the medical efficacy of his oil and the sad state of pill-popping modernity. He had a big tub at his feet, supposedly filled with the oil of the snakes, and he ladled it into little bottles, passing one around for people to rub on their hands. Sun-blasted locals clamored forward to get a sample on their skin; one, upon being asked, let Jen take a whiff and it smelled to her of menthol.
The Ride to the Other Side of the LakeWe realized we hadn't left ourselves very much time to get where we needed to be on the other side of the lake, so we got in a local taxi and surprised him by negotiating a fare all the way to the dock where we were to meet the boat to our hotel for the next two nights. Our destination was a good hour beyond the farthest point he'd ever been and he seemed excited and nervous, double-checking the tires and asking in every pueblo for directions. It was about 3 hours of rolling brown grasslands, taking us through flood plains with triangles of stacked wheat drying in the sun and cows anchored to pegs in the ground. Little cubist adobe houses dot the landscape, with little adobe ziggurats for storage, and many walls are painted with large election ads. Because much of the population can not read, the campaign signs are all marked with an identifying pictograph that will appear on the ballot: vote for the "orange", the "sandal", the "little house" or even the "coca leaf". We traversed a large marshy area populated by ducks and wading birds, and a forest of the reeds that are used in the famous floating reed villages out on the lake. [Which, by the way, we had heard were very touristy and skipped…we regret it now, touristy or no, a floating reed village has got to be something amazing] We drove on, getting farther off the beaten track, watching the lakeside hills crinkle up and rocks jut up looking like the spines of some giant buried stegosaurus. Villages sit in the creases, the adobe turns more red, and many of the houses are roofed with thatch instead of corrugate. I saw 3 separate pairs of caracaras, like large hawks but with striking black and white plumage and sharp red beaks. It all felt picturesque, though we got doses of clarity when a man was too drunk to give coherent directions or when we had to stop because some little hoodlums had blocked the road with a large branch and demanded a tip prior to moving it.
Then we unexpectedly came upon a local celebration and our driver asked if we wanted to stop. We walked into the colorful swirl of the fiesta, with multiple bands and several dance circles underway. We were clearly space aliens, yet were received with happy shouts and questions. A group of men, sitting and drinking, were hugely pleased when I called "Salud!" to them. Some proudly hollered "Perú!" and others yelled out "Estados Unidos" to make sure we felt welcome. A couple of suspicious boys let me take their picture; I love it not only because the one is wearing his celebration attire, but also they are holding toy guns, scowling, eating candy, and in the background you can see the stands where we ordered chicharones (deep fried nuggets, pork in this case) with Andean corn and purple potatoes.
until she had me, gripping my hands with surprising strength, and I had no choice but to dance my best approximation of the Andean huayno. It seems a simple, stomping kind of dance, yet there seems to include an arhythmic stomp and I'm afraid I was a big laughable gringo. Which, of course, made everyone very happy. I yelled out to the onlookers, did my best, and gave my partner a kiss on the cheek before Jen and I extracted ourselves. Our path back to the taxi was a gauntlet, people calling out for us to stay and drink until nightfall, us giving our regrets. |
| Isla Suasi |
Isla Suasi
Finally, the taxi dropped us with our bags on the side of the road by a sign for our hotel, situated on a private island. We went downhill to the little pier and eventually a Zodiac motored up and took us to the island. A narrow strip, only about 3/4s of a mile long, patrolled by cormorants, Isla Suasi has the small eco-lodge on one end and a small promontory on the other that rises up to just over 13,000ft in altitude. The landlady of the island has made the place a natural showpiece to reflect local flora and fauna. We stayed there two nights and saw many birds (including the freakishly big Giant Hummingbird), vizcacha (looking for all the world like squirrel-rabbits or "squabbits") who could run up the face of a cliff, and cousins of the llama (the domesticated alpaca and the endangered wild vicuña).
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| Grilled alpaca. Jen is opening her trout. |
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| Stargazing |
There's not a whole lot to do, yet somehow I never even opened the book I brought. Pretty much you can wander the island, you can take a canoe out, or you can stargaze. The stargazing was particularly amazing; it has been a long time since I've seen the Milky Way so clearly and I found myself strangely emotional to see the Southern Cross for the first time. My particular favorite, Scorpio, was high in the sky. At one point, Jupiter was low in the sky and yet somehow powerful enough to create a long rippling reflection in the lake. Jennifer and I took a flashlight and made our way up to the promontory on the second night as the breeze died off, allowing us to take off our gloves, stare into the starry abyss with binoculars, and reflect. Then Jen farted. That seems to be another side effect of altitude. Carter really liked one little spot, the Playa de Piedras (Beach of Stones) because, of course, there was ample opportunity to find the perfect skipping rock. He's good, but I was able to hold on to the record. Jen and Carter went out a couple of extra times in the canoe, discovering a beautiful local duck (puna teal) with bright blue beaks. Finally, it was time to leave. We returned to the sobering ugliness of Juliaca for our flight, but we had a little trouble getting Mariza through security because this time it was me who had lost the "original" printout of the temporary ID. Luckily, they eventually let us through and this time without having to "tip" anybody.
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| Giant Hummingbird, biggest there is |
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