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.