We know, we know. You want more of this sweet blog action, and we’ve been slacking. We know. Well, here you go.
It took nearly three full days back in Arequipa for my legs to recover from hiking the Colca Canyon. Natalie did much better than me. She is a champion. The first day I could literally not go up and down stairs. So after a few days of gimping around and eating lots of Rosa’s queso helado, we hopped a bus to Puno to go to Lake Titicaca. We did manage to book bus tickets for the wrong day, but the fine staff of Cruz del Sur helped us out, getting us new tickets and holding the bus up for us. And they show Paul Blart, Mall Cop 2 on every bus ride, so it worked out pretty much perfectly.
Not much to say about Puno. It may be the overall worst smelling place we’ve been yet. The hotel was not bad, but they did decide to put us on the 5th floor, so hiking up all those flights of stairs at 12500 feet when its cold out…not so much fun. But they did give us 4 ridiculously heavy blankets.
Next morning, we go down to the pier to catch a boat to the islands. If you do this, don’t book a tour. Just go down to the pier and pay 30 soles (less than $10), and you get a round trip ride to the islands and they set up a homestay for you, and you pay the family (35 soles) directly.
So anyways, like 40-ish people pile on this boat. It’s less sketchy than we imagined. There is an enclosed cabin, reclining seats, a bathroom, a little observation deck on top, and it’s actually pretty clean. We take off from the port and head to the Uros islands. It takes 30 minutes or so. It should have taken 5 minutes. This is the world’s slowest boat. We could have rowed there faster. I could have swam there faster, and I only know how to doggy paddle. This is not a joke. There is no hair whipping in the fresh air on the lake, but you will work up a sweat sitting there waiting to arrive.
The Uros islands are mildly mind boggling. They are literally islands built out of reeds. They just pile more and more reed on top of each other, until you get an island. And people live on them. There’s more than a few buildings on each one, and there is a bunch of them. I, personally, am not completely comfortable being on these man-made-out-of-dead-plant-stems islands, but it is pretty cool. It’s kinda a tourist trap. We got a presentation from a dude who said he was the president of the islands. Or maybe it was just the island we landed on. Or maybe he just likes to call himself president. Who knows. After the presentation, they spend 30 minutes trying to sell you stuff for way more than you would pay anywhere else in Peru.
So back on the boat to Isla Amantani. This is where the slowest boat in the world makes itself memorable. We can see the island. It doesn’t seem so far away. The captain points us at it, and off we go. This part of the ride takes nearly 3 hours. I think. Time means nothing on this boat. It is going so slow, the captain actually leaves the chair, and no one steers the boat. And not just for a little while. Like no one is steering this boat for a couple hours. We would fall asleep, wake up a little bit later, and still no captain, and we are not getting any closer to anything except a herniated disc from sitting so long. We are going so slow that the same two ducks swam next to us for about an hour, laughing at all of us languishing on this slow ass boat. Because ducks can laugh.
But we made it. We stop at one stone dock to drop off a few people. Of course, the boat slams into rocks, and bounces off, and we drift off a bit, but are rescued by this tiny little native lady holding onto the rope for dear life. Everyone on the boat just stared in silence while this lady pretty much saved us all from a cold, watery death.
Up on the dock, a bunch of local women gather to claim us for the night. Natalie and I are paired with a couple of pretty cool dudes from Spain Sergio and Dani. Got a little hike back in to get to the house, since we haven’t got one in the last few days. Really missed wheezing and trying not to cry with every step.
It wasn’t that bad, actually. Only 15 minutes of light torture. The house itself is actually pretty big. It’s made of brick, adobe, some wood, whatever. The only electric things are a few light bulbs powered by a solar panel. Solar is the only electricity on the island. Evidently, there was a diesel generator in the island, but someone didn’t pay the bill, so everyone just got a solar panel. There is even one of our fancy western style toilets. But there’s water running to it, so there is a big giant bucket of water, and you use a smaller bucket and dump water in the bowl and it flushes. There was also no light in there. We were totally roughing it.
We get lunch. There’s a potato/quinoa/vegetable soup, followed by a plate of fried cheese, some kind of beans, some potatoes, and some more kind of root vegetables. Evidently, they only bring out the cheese for the tourists. Pretty much all meals involve just some vegetables, potatoes, and rice. Not super exciting, but for some of us, that’s life on a small island on the highest navigable lake in the world in the middle of the Andes mountains.
After nap time, its time to subject ourselves to more physical torture. On the islands, there’s a couple of mountains, Pachamama and Pachatata, name for mother and father Earth by the indigenous folks. So it was time for some slightly serious hiking again, since we’ve become such gluttons for punishment. It wasn’t really hiking so much as walking up steep ass paths. It was much more pleasant than the usual hike. The paths were well paved, at first wandering in between the houses and small plots of land, before going up through the larger terraced farm land above town. The locals were all very nice, everyone saying hello. There were people still working the fields, sheep, horses, and donkeys everywhere. Little kids were along the path trying to sell you bracelets. Others dragged all their goods up the mountains, hoping to catch some poor tourist in a weakened, tired state. Some are even trying to hawk beer on the mountain top. And every time you turn around, the view of the lake gets more and more spectacular.
The way up takes about an hour. There’s a 70 year old man from Belguim pushing me for second-to-last up the mountain, but I totally kicked his ass. The view from the top of Pachatata is even more spectacular than before. The lake seems as big as the ocean…nearly endless. The only way you can tell the difference is the mountains in the distance that border the lake. In one direction, you can see Bolivia, the other, Peru. The sun begins to drop over the mountains, the reflection on the lake is almost too bright, the houses below look like little toys…and all this dumb hiking uphill is justified.
Sergio has got in his head that he’s gonna jump in the lake, so he has already left to run down the mountain. The high might have been 50 for the day. The water is absolutely not warm. I stuck my bare toe in it and it was cold. But he has convinced himself he was gonna do it, and he is currently the only person we know that has gone swimming in Lake Titicaca.
Some asshole tourist arrives at the mountain top on the back of a horse. It’s quite tempting to push him down the mountain. Or at least insult his mother and manhood. He probably doesn’t have a mother, because she would have made him walk. Anyways, walking down is way better than walking up. Dinner is similar to lunch. Same soup, and the main course involves potatoes and rice. There’s a party that they throw for the tourists. They dress us (not me) in some traditional clothes, there’s a band playing folk music, and they “teach” us “traditional” dance. Which was mostly everyone holding hands and running around in circles. Which may be the traditional dance (doubtful), but my personal feeling is that they do it to make fun of us. It’s still a blast, and the band even does a pretty solid version of “Guantanamera” for us.
The night sky is ridiculous. Things you don’t see in Atlanta…stars. We’ve never seen so many stars before. There’s shooting stars. There’s too many stars to even try to pick out constellations. I tried to take a picture of them, but it didn’t work so great. But if you’ve ever seen the night sky while you’re hours away from the nearest city, you know what I’m talking about. We also saw what may or may not have been a UFO take off from across the lake. I give it a 36.7% chance of being an alien spacecraft.
For breakfast, we each get a pancake and some jam. There doesn’t seem to be syrup in Peru. At least none that people give us. Its always strawberry jam. It’s not bad, but not the same. Say goodbye to the host family, who were all super duper nice the whole time, and head to Taquille, one of the other islands on the Peruvian side of the lake. We only spend a few hours here. Just long enough to get in some more hiking up mountains. It is a bit on the touristy side, but still a pretty little place. We hang out in the main square to bask in the sun for a bit, and watch all the other tourists go by. There’s also some local men’s weaving/knitting club/cult thing showing off. Then’s there the hike back down. Sergio decides to jump in the lake again. And we take the world’s slowest boat back to the mainland. If it went any slower, it would go backwards. Again the captain just points it in direction, locks the throttle (can you even call it a throttle if it doesn’t make you go anywhere?), and probably goes to take a nap at the back of the boat. In the end, we make it back hours later, and live happily ever after.
Best Name Ever For A Travel Blog 