Our bus departed at 10pm and was awful. We had nice seats but the Israelis behind us were talking the whole time. The bus was too hot and we couldn’t get them to turn on the air. The road was curvy and gaining altitude and people were getting sick throughout the night. If I managed to sleep at all during those 7 hours it was for half an hour maximum. We arrived in Puno at 4:30am and sipped on coca tea for 2 hrs in the bus terminal. This was probably the lowest point of an otherwise amazing trip.
At 8am we boarded our boat and headed out on Lake Titicaca, the world’s highest navigable body of water. Our first stop was the Uros or floating islands of the Aymara people. This was too touristy for my liking but it was interesting to learn how the people make the islands, boats, houses, schools, food, etc. After an hour we loaded the boat again and headed (very slowly) towards Amantani Island.
When we arrived in Amantani we were paired with our host family and started the trek, yes trek, to our house. I was not feeling very well and the long, hot, uphill hike did not make me feel better. When we arrived at the house I got in bed and stayed there all evening. I think that I had a combination of altitude sickness, exhaustion, and bacteria from food. Amantani is more than 4000m (13,000 feet) above sea level. Our Quechua family was very nice, spoke good Spanish, and cooked great meals. I did not know that so many types of potatoes and tubers existed until eating dinner with them. I unfortunately missed a hike to the top of the island and a dance where I would have gotten dressed up in traditional clothes but I decided to sleep so that I would feel better for the rest of the trip.
In the morning we went to Taquile Island and learned about their customs. Taquile’s inhabitants are still very traditional and maintain rules about intermarriage. You can tell whether or not young men are single or taken by the style of hat that they wear and how they wear it. We walked up and across the island and had lunch in a restaurant in the Plaza.
When we got back to Puno the first thing we did was try to change our bus tickets for the earliest possible bus. After the awful overnight experience we wanted to get it out of the way as early as possible to that we could still get a hostel when we got back to Cusco. We changed our tickets for a local bus at 6pm. This simple decision turned into one of my most interesting experiences in Peru. I was wearing two jackets and had my money, passport, and camera split between my inside pockets and socks. As I found my seat a group of Peruvian women in traditional dress was hustling on and off the bus with boxes, bags, blankets, cushions, food, children, and anything else you could think of. They crammed the boxes and bags under their seats then piled them up on top of their seats and covered them with blankets. After everything was loaded they perched on top of the huge stacks and settled down. About 30 min into the ride a really big lady comes over to me and asks if the empty seat next to me is taken. There were lots of other free seats on the bus so asked her if she wouldn’t mind sitting somewhere else. She took that as an invitation to sit down and started moving boxes into my seat. Between her body size, the boxes, and the blankets I was left pushed up against the window. I thought it was kind of amusing though so I let the situation enroll.
An hour later the entertainment increased as we were joined by a travelling candy bar salesman and his clown puppet. His candy was called Killate- which in Spanish doesn't mean anything- but in Spanglish is the command for kill you! If that wasn't enough to creep us out on a dark local bus he kept going around asking for money and then saying "Don't worry, I won't rob you or murder you. I'm just trying to make money."
Several hours later, while I was dozing off, all of the women starting frantically moving boxes around, taping boxes together, and covering them with blankets. They filled the seat next to me, covered it up, and asked me to sleep on it. I pretended not to understand Spanish and watched as they jumped back into their seats. The bus stopped and a police officer from a road block entered, walked down the aisle with a light, questioned a few women, then left. As the bus pulled away all of the women relaxed. The road got really curvy as we neared Cusco and the women started chewing coca leaves like crazy. We arrived in Cusco at 1:45am and headed straight for our hostel to sleep.
No comments:
Post a Comment