Last Tuesday I left Cuzco for Puno, which technically is the big city on the Peruvian side of Lake Titicaca. And it was incredibly UNINSPIRING as a city. Very industrial, very plain, with lots of advertisements. To add insult to injury, the city itself is composed entirely of the red-brown mud bricks that you see in the Sacred Valley. But without the backdrop of the stunning green mountains, it lacks lustre.
So what was a girl to do? Especially when feeling under the weather? I paid $40 US for a night in a very nice hotel. It was the first time I used an elevator in seven and a half months. A notion I remarked upon, to no one in particular. Thus I spent the evening wishing my body would heal and watching episodes of Friends and Two and a Half Men with Spanish subtitles. It was sort of equal parts awful and entertaining.
I realized too late that the ONE place on the Peruvian side of Lake Titicaca I wanted to see, would require a 4 hour ride. Which I now know is completely false, however at 2:00pm seemed like an impossibility. Especially feeling as awful as I did. So I hunkered down and watched dubbed films in Spanish and tried to relax and feel better. This included finding almonds and pecans, fresh no less, and devouring them. It is the first time I have had a “proper” nut in a very long time.
The next day at an ungodly hour, I was out of my nice double bed and in a taxi heading to the bus terminal. Which I should take some time to describe as some of the weirdest places I have ever seen. They are a mix of panaderias and bus companies. All of which are loud, slightly obnoxious, and over-the-top. I feel like it is the advertising equivalent of “girls gone wild”. In the sense that everyone loses inhibitions and you end up with some very inflated claims and creative shouting. In particular listening to the woman shout for the Arequipa bus in 1.5 hours for 45 minutes was both incredibly, teeth mashingly annoying yet incredible beautiful too. There is just something about how they yell at you.
Strangely the border crossing into Bolivia is a breeze. You don’t pay anything, you just present your passport to some mildly surly security guard and get stamped. Then walk across the border to meet another official to stamp your entrance and there you go. Welcome to Bolivia.
Upon arrival in Copacabana, I needed to search for a bank. Since Peru generally doesn’t use Bolivianos (read, does not), I was in need of local currency. This would turn out to be more of a stressful even then I thought. I headed to five different ATMs located around town. Talked to numerous persons to ask them where another one was located, perhaps one that actually had money. However I was out of luck. Nothing but a very surly guard at a bank telling me I could take money out at 2:40 with a credit card. However I would miss a boat to Isla del Sol (Sun Island) on Lake Titicaca, my eventual destination.
So with my final 200 soles I changed them for 500 Bolivianos. Just enough for me to eat and sleep on the island and book a ticket to La Paz where I hoped their would be a reliable ATM. Somewhere! So with money in hand, and what I thought was no time to spare I raced to the ticket office to purchase a spot on the 1:30pm boat to Isla del Sol. Only then did I discover that Bolivia is in fact an hour ahead of Peru. All I know is that somehow I was magically bumped up to having to wait 10 minutes for a boat.
The boat ride was incredible. I loved watching the green, terraced hills of Bolivia fade into the distance and start seeing some startling snow capped mountains. To add on top of that, the sun gleaming on the deep blue waters was intoxicating. Even though I was stuck between a man with a cough and a man with bad b.o. I was in heaven. When we started going through other islands to reach our destination, I was really grateful that I stuck it out to come here.
After what felt like a very long time, we arrived in Isla del Sol. And while I was not disappointed in terms of beauty, I was in terms of harassment. Apparently tourist dollars are big here. And everyone has a room for you. Even the little children. They run after you shouting “necessita un habitacion? Yo tengo!” While slightly endearing at first, it gets old when they start following you.
Strangely enough, our boat captain, Willie, had rooms available. Which he did advertise on the boat too. When we ran into him in the streets (I was at this point joined by a Korean couple who were also looking for a room), I just felt like perhaps I could check out his rooms. I was pleasantly surprised to find very comfortable accommodations with an incredible view of the crescent shaped moon behind me and the view to Copacabana in frount.
I spent the afternoon just exploring the island. Walking on the beach where all the hippies had tents pitched (probably much cheaper than my 20 Boliviano room), eating quinoa soup at a restaurant, and just generally absorbing my setting. By the time I made it back to my room the sun was setting. And while I may have seen better sunsets, it was definitely a contender.
The rays of the sun were going behind the far side of the crescent-shaped beach. Beams of light where pouring past the mountain peak along with pinks and reds. It was beautiful. On the far horizon you could see the rainbow the setting sun was creating on the water. The net effect? Incredible. The brief walk to find myself on the cliffs of my side, surrounded by what appeared to be some sort of bean plant and wild flowers was equally a gorgeous setting. Though I was scared by three little boys and their harvest, as well as one hidden sheep munching on the foliage.
As I walked back to the “hostel” I met Willie’s wife. Earlier I had seen her starting a fire with her two boys watching and “helping” as only toddlers can. She was apologizing about how the hostel wasn’t quite finished. How there was so much more to do. I told her at least you had very comfortable rooms. She just kept apologizing and talking about how hard it was to get materials to the island (which I don’t doubt). Additionally, we talked a bit about the “bad tourists” who come through.
Lately I have been hearing a lot about these “bad tourists” and I have no idea what that means. Do they steal? Do they destroy the rooms? Do they run away without paying? I have no idea. But this turned into a conversation about how their are bad people everywhere. Yet somehow, I find that they are very rare to meet. Instead, I seem to meet all the people who are, if not perfect, at least helpful. In some regard.
After that, I retired early in order to watch a movie and hopefully relax a bit. Unfortunately the movies I watched were 127 hours and Magnolia. Perhaps a strange combination, but both movies I had never seen before. And I am not ashamed to admit that I did get slightly teary in 127 hours when he (SPOILER) makes it out alive. Somehow when you see stories of complete survival you just have to be so happy for them that they made it out alive. It made me realize too that I should probably slough off the little stuff. Seems slightly embarrassing to make a big deal when someone had to go through what he did.
Magnolia, with Tom Cruise, was sort of a complete crap movie. And although it had moments of brilliance, I just couldn’t stand Tom Cruise acting like a sleeze. Not because he didn’t do a good job, just because I find that the more times you make sexual innuendos, the faster I am to completely disregarding the film as anything other than stupid. Plus, I always find myself staring at Tom Cruises’ teeth and feeling like things just don’t quite align. If you know what I mean.
In any case, it was rather late at night and I didn’t get to bed before 1:00am. Thus my plan to walk up to the ruins was all but shot to shit. I woke up at 9:00am and would have enough time to pack, eat, and not a whole bunch else. So within an hour I found myself at the docks once again buying a ticket back to the mainland. By this time I had come to another conclusion. That perhaps I wasn’t supposed to see Bolivia (or at least more of it) on this trip.
I have been lucky enough to see six countries on this trip, and I still have one more to go. Plus plunging further into Bolivia would take me further and further away from Lima, where my flight to Easter Island departs. Thus I made a decision. That I will have to come back to Bolivia and do it right. See it properly and not rush through it. With that in mind, I opted to go see one more city in the South of Peru that I wanted to visit, but hadn’t had the time before. Arequipa.
Thus, within 24 hours, I would be hearing the sweet, sweet call of “Aray-kee-pa! Aray-kee-pa! Aray-keeeeeeee-pa” one more time.
I was also proud to say that I had a two hour conversation with a Chilean. Success.
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