Never Have I Ever

As it turns out, I never blogged about Cuzco, Peru, Montañita, Ecuador, or my week back in Buenos Aires with the Sassower clan.....woops! That's what video and movies are for!

Puno - guest entry by J

After spending almost five months at sea level, M and I shot up about 3900 meters to Puno. We arrived early in the Juliaca airport and took a beautiful ride to Puno, about an hour away. I was out cold, of course, but M saw the view and told me it was lovely, which I was able to confirm when we drove back to Juliaca a few days later. By ten am we were in Puno, which was bustling. We went to talk to the tourist police, who explained that after 8 am, our options for leaving the city to view sites were extremely limited. We booked a tour to visit the floating islands of Uros and the Island of Taquile the next then. Then we went to a mercado de artesenias, where ladies in many layers of skirts sell things they made. We each bought some alpaca, as we were both freezing. And although the hostal boasted hot showers, hot air was another matter.

To be completely honest, after the market we ate some mediocre Lonely-Planet-recommended pizza and went almost immediately to bed. We cuddled from 6 pm through the night, completely freezing.

The next morning we were up with the sun. I wore two pairs of pants, three shirts, a hat, gloves, and a scarf. M was wearing three shirts, a wool jacket, an alpaca sweater, alpaca gloves, an alpaca hat, and who knows what else. We huddled in the back of the bus that transported us to the port on Lake Titicaca, the highest navigable lake in the world.

"What does that mean, highest naivgable lake?" M asked the tour guide.
"Well, we have other lakes, higher up, but not that you can put big boats on. This lake goes into Bolivia, and we can use it for transport..."
We were traveling the world's highest lake that has big boats on it.

Every time our tour guide spoke, he emphasized each syllable and used his lips. He said everything in both Spanish and English, offering direct translations after every few sentences. There was no pattern to whether English or Spanish guidance was offered first.

We arrived to the floating Islands with the warning to wear sunscreen: "The indigenous people have a problem with the skin cancer." It was true--even young children had discolored cheeks and noses from sun damage. The islands were made of a reed that grows in the lake. We recieved a brief demonstration on how the island was built.

"They start with the roots of the reed, a big block like this." Our tour guide gestured a large mud brick on display. "Then they add reeds on top." A man began to pile the reeds on top of the block. "Then they anchor it down, and then it's ready to live on." The man sets little dolls and Uros houses, made of the same reed, on top of the "island."

Then the families allow us to see inside their homes. They live in one-room villas made of reeds. Usually the floors are reeds, although at least one house had a wooden floor. The houses didn't always have real beds, but they all had TV and radio. It was strange to see wires going along a reed wall.

The women and girls were in colorful, layered skirts. The women weren't wearing shoes. I was wearing socks and flip flops, as I'd left my tennis shoes on a bus to Recife. But I was freezing--they seemed just fine. "They're accustomed to it," one man explained when I asked about their bare feet.

The Uros people were in Peru before the Incans arrived. They were enslaved by the Incans, then freed but told they had to leave. First they lived in boats, before they discovered the art of building islands to live on. Each island needs new reeds applied every few weeks.

The people were poor--their economy consisted entirely of fishing and selling small figurines for tourists to keeps as reminders of their trip to the Uros islands. They had a government-mandated school and a doctor on one island. They learned Spanish in school, even though their first language is Aymara.

We played with the kids while everyone else shopped. We gave them candy and talked to them in Spanish. I wanted to help, but I had no use or room for a sculpture of a boat made by the Uros people.

Next we went into the open water and drive to Taquile, almost two hours from the Uros islands. We walked up a brutal path to the square. At one point I passed a woman with a huge pack on her back. Later along the road, she passed me and I heard the pack whine--it was a baby, completely concealed in a piece of cloth. When we finally reached the top, Hannah asked if we were taking the pills for altitude sickness.

"There are pills?"

We made do without the pills, but we also learned that feeling cold is a symptom of altitude sickness. The pieces began to come together.

We sat at lunch with an Israeli girl named Daniela whose parents were originally from Argentina. We ate freash fish and vegetable soup and felt much better. Next we walked down about 500 stairs on the other side of the island to catch the boat. We passed a girl who was carrying a lamb. We passed an Asian man who started talking to a lamb. The scenery was unreal: Mountains over the lake, covered in trees. We boarded the boat.

That night we went out to pizza not recommended by the Lonely Planet, and it was delicious. The chef made it fresh in front of us, and we warmed ourselves by the oven as it cooked. Then we went to a bar called Positive and watched music videos. We met a man who was friends with a Shaman and we talked about the full moon. M carried on a conversation entirely in Spanish with the man sitting next to her. The vibes were, indeed, positive.

Need to Write but Too LAZY!

Must write about Puno and Cuzco in Peru. SO cool. Too lazy right now.

Besos!

Feels Like a Lifetime Later

Wow! So much and somehow hardly anything at all has happened. We left Jeri for Recife, spent two nights in Recife, and then took a long and difficult journey to Salvador. SO SO many bumps in that road. Too many to explain. Sadly, we left Ayaloosh at the bus station in Salvador, and J and I headed to the airport. We flew to Sao Paulo, where we waited for 6 hours. After 6 hours of waiting we went to check in to our flight, where they alerted us that since i didnt have the card stating that i had the yellow fever vaccine (it got stolen in my wallet) i was at risk of getting deported from Peru. But J and I decided to risk it! After all, it wouldve made a great story...twenty years down the road. But, we made it into Lima, Peru without a hitch. Be ware of the Panama City airport though, only one restaurant....with some gnarley side effects. Abbas friend Danny sent a driver to pick us up from the airport, and the driver brought us to Dannys wonderful house. We explored Lima for about a day and a half. We visited the Mercado de los Indios and saw the awesome Larcomar mall, which is literally built into a cliff. Then today we went paragliding off the beachfront cliffs, and i even got to land on the beach! At one point we ¨stalled¨ in the air and it was one of the coolest feelings i have ever had, like floating in thin air. We are now at the airport waiting to fly to Puno, but silly us, we got here WAY too early.

Happy Fourth of July! I wish I could be there....but i am SO glad im here!!

See you in 23 days!
Love and kisses

One of the Worldś Most Beautiful Beaches

Before arriving in Jericoacoara we heard that it is considered one of the worldś most beautiful beaches, which peaked our interest even further. We arrived to Jeri via a bus which took us to a trolley-like thing, because the bus could no longer drive through the ridiculous terrain. We drove for an hour or two along gorgeous beach that oddly enough featured cows and donkeys. Finally we got to Jeri. It is a beautiful beach town placed on a national natural reserve. That means that there were no real streets, hardly any cars, zero pollution, and tons of animals and such. We checked into a hostel that Ayal picked. Though it was nice, I had my eye on somethin' else. We went to the beach the next day, and afterwards we headed towards this hostel I saw when we first arrived to town called Masai Mara. It was beautiful. They showed us the master suite, and we simply could not help ourselves. It was absolutely heaven. Actually, we called it the Majestic Palace and refered to the upstairs portion that held our bedroom and fantastic bathroom as Heaven. Every time we opened the door to our apartment or walked anywhere in the Pousada (hostel) little frogs and geckos hopped all over the place! We went to the different beaches every day and hiked up the dunes. We got to see several fantastic sunsets, as if they were taken from post cards. They actually have a dune called Sunset Dune or something like that (catchy, I know) that people hike to get a higher up view of the sunset.
My favorite part, or one of them at least, was going to the Manglars. What is a manglar, you might ask. Good question! I wondered the very same thing! When we looked at the poster about how Jeri was a natural reserve we saw an icon for the manglars that had a crab, some water, and a tree growing out of the water. Then we saw another one that was supposed to represent the manglar that just had a sea horse. What could this thing be!? So one day we hired a guy with a dune buggy (that is how they drive around in Jeri--fantastic and fun) to take us to the manglars. We got to see the strange and magnificent terrain of Jeri and the surrounding area, which included a visit to the manglars. Apparently a manglar is a body of water with trees coming out of it. There were tons of crabs....so many it looked like the ground was gyrating. We also got to see some sea horses, even a pregnant one! The guy that took us on the boat told us that a pregnant sea horse holds around 700 babies. Can you imagine sending all those suckers to college!?
Aaaaannywhoo, we are now in Recife, still with Ayal and happy he is here, slowly making our way towards Salvador to catch our flight to Lima, Peru. We travelled for about 20 hours just to get here and we are staying in a shitty hostel, so now we are gonna go to the beach.

Iĺl keep you posted!!
I LOVE you!!

Miss Me?

We are in the fabulous national natural reserve of Jericoacoara. I need to write about this fantastic place, but its too wonderful to waste time by the computer!

Im sorry!
I love you!

Morro de Sao Paulo

We left Itacare early Sunday morning (around 5:30) and took two buses and a ferry boat that finally brought us to Morro de Sao Paulo. It was raining pretty hard core when we landed, but J and I are more hardcore than any rain! So we hiked with our bags through the crazy to the Black and White hostel. We chose Black and White because all of the israelis stay there :-) We got a chance to see a good portion of the island, though through the rain, but it was beautiful. The streets are made of sand and there are no cars. Stuff is really expensive here though because it is pretty much all tourists. Because of the rain we hung in our room a lot, which we shared with two other israelis. J actually got shocked by the shower....which was funnier than you'd expect. One day we ate shakshukah, another result of the strong israeli influence on this island. We met this israeli guy named Ayal and he decided to join us on our trip to Jericoacoara because he has been here for two weeks already just chillin in a hammock. So we are headed out in like an hour....gotta go eat!!

love from your backpacker abroad!