So last I wrote I believe I was sitting in some internet joint in Puno, Peru trying to type over the noise of people playing a soccer video games across the hall and a guy next to me listening to his Musica Latina Rrrrromantico blasted to the point of distortion on his eety-bitty computer speakers. I had to get out of there.
So a bus from Cusco to Puno it was, what date I don’t remember, it was a while back. On a Sunday if I remember correctly. The bus got into town at 9pm and i was rapidly approached by a drunk cabbie trying to give me a ride to a hostel. Uhm, no buddy, you reek of liquor. I think not. I hopped in anohter cab and found a bed for the night. I was pretty pooped from the bus ride. Got some pizza and some street food and passed out to get up just before 7am the next day to try to get a ridce out to the Titicaca islands of Amantani and Taquile.
I was trying to avoid going with some obnoxious tour group but pretty much ended up with one anyway. Grr. I was tempted into taking a tourist boat to the island because they stopped bu Uros, the floating islands in Titicaca. I think it would have been a lot cooler to ride on the collectivo boat with the locals but I was tempted tempted tempted by seeing more more more. Uros wasn’t all that exciting. They dropped us off at a school where the kids sang us some songs and we walked around on these piles of reed that sloshed around but held us up. Houses were on stilts and I think they just put so much reeds down between them that it made a bit of an island. I’m better with cameras than explaining. Unfortunately I didn’t have a camera for this bit.
We cruised on to Amantani. I got to talking to Luis, the Ecuadorean who has been studying Sewage Engineering in Germany for 4 years and we had fun shifting between our 3 common languages. I leared Spanish from him. He learned some English. Good times. Once on the island there was sort of a matching up of gringos with locals who would put us up in their humble homes for the night. The islands was pretty and really mellow. I ran into a couple that was camping shortly above the house where I was staying. I was wishing I had brought my tent. I was wishing I hadn’t been hurring to meet some buddies in La Paz real soon. As it was I stayed on Amantani for one night.
Juan, our host, was running a school for kids that were to poor to go to normal school. The schoolroom also doubled as our dining room. It was fun reading all the moral sayings written on the wall. Reminded me of the early grades of grammar school.
We did a walk around the island to a temple up at the top. On the way some Amantani denizens were all too eager to sell us some of their woolen goods. I bought one hat, I should have bought many more. The quality and brilliant colors that I found there havn’t been available at a comparable price anywhere else. Lesson learned, I guess. If you see it and like it, buy it. One problem, I hadn’t brought a lot of loot so I had to watch my spending a bit.
That night we were al shuffled into a room where some local kids played pretty music and got us all up to dance. My belly hurt after the first dance so I resigned to sitting on the bench in my borrowed poncho trying to figure out how the skirts of the local women poof out so far.
The next morning we caught a boat to Taquine Island where we were shuffled into a restaurant which I and a few others quickly escaped in order to wander around on our own for a little bit. We the rebellious few that could not take the herd mentality. We played with kids near the school for a while. We were going to do a hike for a while but the kids were too engaging. I didn’t have any candy to give them, not that I would, so I had them basically at each others throats when i pulled out the stickers I had bought in Cusco. Smileys and Garfield. The Jesus and Mary stickers were definitely the biggest hits.
We were just starting to play around with throwing the kids around through the air when we had to go. Best thing to do with kids that are begging, I think I might have written this before, months ago, play with them. Make them forget that they want something from you and give them something else, a fun time.
A boat ride back to Puno led to some more Spanish and German lessons. I joined some cool Isrealis back to their cheaper hostel that even had a kitchen and retired to the internet to write my last real blog update. Lordy. How behind I am. I came back from the internet and these kids had cooked some delicious burgers that they shared with me. Thanks Guys. The next morning I making off to La Paz, Bolivia to meet up with Ida and Marthe who had been travelling there direct from Cusco.
The bus ride from Puno to Copacabana, Bolivia was pretty uneventful. People payed anywhere from 10 to 25 soles for the ride. Depending on what hotel they booked it from. It was a strict tourist bus and a lot of people from my island tour were also onboard.
Getting across the border posed no problems though they only gave everyone 30 days in their tourist visa. Bastards. Ecuador and Peru gave 90 days without a problem. When we were entering Copacabana a guy got on bard the buys and was trying to sell us tickets to allow us to enter Copacabana and since we had a few people on the bus who had been to Coapacabana the week before and didn’t have to pay this nominal fee most of us said screw you to the guy, we’re not even staying here. Since when do towns get on buses and start charging passengers to pass through their town. A few people got rid of their last bits of fake peruvian money on this poor sap. Most of us just flat out refused.
Rolling into Copacabana it became very evident that there were no buses to La Paz. The road was closed due to a strike in the province so the only option that remained was to take a boat to the town of Taquine from where the road to La Paz was open. Near the bus a guy wanted 70 bolivianos for the 4 hours boat ride and we couldn’t talk him down below 50 so we walked down to the docks, we being the group of us that was on the bus and trying to push on to La Paz. With our bargaining power combined we talked the boat down to 35 bolivianos, about $5. Starting to approach a fair price. Off we went, I read some of my Tom Sawyer and the newspaper on board. At some point here I also started reading the copy of Kon-Tiki in German that the Swedish guy gave to me in Pimentel way back in northern Peru. The boat ride stretched on and on and we eventually piled into a small kombi minivan on the other end and made the 2.5 hour ride to La Paz. All 6 of us stuck together and found a hotel. It’s not that great to walk around a big city looking for accomodation, alone, with all your belongings on your back.
The next morning I cruised to the Alojamento El Carretero to seek out Ida and Marthe. I got there at about 10 am woke them up in the process of trying to contact them.
They’d had a tought trip from Cusco to La Paz, it took 36 hours in all. Ideally it would take 18 but they got caught up in the same issues I did except for their bus didn’t know about the strike so they had to wait and turn back and wasted a lot of time. Yuck. They deserved their rest.
We wandered around for a day and booked a mountain bike trip to Corioco which leads down the, ahem, Death Road. The road had some pretty damn steep embankments. When a bus falls down the side of the mountain in a few inopportune spots people die. It was pretty chill on bike. We got dropped off at 4700 meters and got to ride down to Coroico which is located at about 2500 meters if I remember correctly. We didn’t have the greatest views. Rain and fog. That made for fun riding. I blew out a rear tire almost at the end of the ride, that’s never happened to me before. It was a full-on loud bang explosion. I got a different heavier bike to finish the end of the tour.
They served us an included dinner at some cute little place by the river and then we got a ride up to Corioco to hang out for a few nights while the bikes and other gringos were shuttled back to La Paz for the next group.
Yadda Yadda. It’s time to go meet some people and have a fun time. I shall try to write some more tomorrow. I hope to get caught up by the time I leave La Paz on Friday night or Saturday. Peace.
Posted by volker at June 23, 2004 10:13 PM