Peru - Lima, Puno to cusco

Well obviously I have fallen a bit behind with the blog and this would have a little to do with the pace of things around here trying to take in as much as we can and fill our days with exploring the city and surrounds as well as participating in some fine dining and liquid refreshments. (It is the liquid refreshment that prevents me from maintaining a late night blog)
Interested to know if any of you understand this sign? The locals have no idea what it means

We spent the best part of our second day on a city tour taking in some churches with fascinating history and catacombs as well as a brief history lesson. The tour guide was great with a good sense of humour and local knowledge. The girls managed to get us dropped off at the Inca Markets in Miraflores so we spent a lazy hour or so checking out what was on offer. Dinner was fairly interesting and not necessarily the greatest meal but Robyn did tackle the first Guinea Pig for the tour.......
Following day we went on another tour, this time out of the city and down to a pre-Inca settlement complete with pyramids and other amazing structures. The site, Pachacamac, was absolutely huge covering over 25 hectares and multiple areas including an area for preparing the virgins for human sacrifice. Scarily this site had been allowed to disappear over the years and was subject to numerous robbings, trail bike tracks and even a road and a shanty town built though the middle before they realised its significance. The trip also took us through numerous shanty towns, both old and new and many without the basics of water, electricity and hygiene. The Peruvian government is committed to improving the many aspects of Lima that make it such a third world country in so many ways. Huge infrastructure is going into roads, paths, bus networks and living conditions for the shanty towns in order to change the current situation. Central Lima is certainly cleaner than either Buenos Aries or Santiago and there are countless local people employed to keep the streets clean. Once you go out of the centre it is a different story and there is a lot more work to be done. Once again we were warned by locals or police if we were getting off the tourist route and heading into dodgy territory. (This showed the genuine concern that most Peruvian’s have for their country).
As the days go on in each of the cities we tend to get more and more adventurous, crossing the streets as the locals do and even catching the odd bus or taxi by negotiating a fair price and trusting that we will get where we want to go.

We have wandered in and out of museums, art exhibitions, and Parliament house often unplanned but also very lucky. We have also found some great restaurants and tried to experience the local food as much as possible. The Ceviche (raw fish marinated in lime/lemon and pepper) is a favourite and will be sure to try and replicate with the next catch of flathead back home. Peruvian wine is crap so we continue to enjoy the Pisco Sours or Chilean wine or local Cervasa (beer).
This is a pretty good graphic on how they drive in Peru.

On our last day in Lima we met the 9 other people who will be joining us on the Gecko tour to Puno, Macchu Pichu and the Amazon jungle. Thankfully they are all good people and will enjoy getting to know each other over the next couple of weeks. They had only just arrived in Lima the day before so they went on an organised tour and we did our own thing before meeting up that night for yet another Pisco Sour.

The next day we headed to the airport as a group for our flight to Juliaca at 4000 feet in the Andes. Had some trouble with my carry on luggage as a piece of metal sculpture was considered dangerous, despite already being through two previous flights! The guy gave me two options, one to put it in the bin and the other to go back to check in and send it as normal baggage. The problem with that was we only had 30 minutes until leaving and were due to start boarding very soon. I was informed that I would need to purchase a new ticket if I missed the plane and would also have to pay another departure tax. A quick decision and I decided to leg it down to the check in and hopefully get back through security before the flight closed, believe me I legged it, three steps at a time down the stairs, to the voice over of “this is a final call for passengers to Cusco boarding at gate 8” . I pushed my way through the queue with my best Spanish and then explained that I needed the bag to go on my flight. Raced back up the stairs through immigration and up to pay tax when I realised that my wallet, phone and computer were all in the backpack.... Oh my god, suddenly remembered I had some American Dollars in my passport wallet so paid the man and proceeded through security to find Tony, Rach and Robyn waiting with the tour guide. Turned out I had plenty of time but felt totally stressed about my wallet, phone and laptop that I no longer had any control over. This flight was one of the longest two hours in history but my prayers to the Incan gods were answered and the little blue backpack came around on the baggage carousel with all contents safely inside.
From Juliaca we had a one hour bus trip to Puno on the shores of Lake Titicaca. Now let me tell you nothing can prepare you for life at 4000 metres, your breathing is restricted and rapid movement is to be avoided at all costs, your head starts to tighten across the temples and limbs can feel quite lethargic. The strategy is to spend a few days coming to terms with the new conditions and allow the body to adjust so the first night was a light meal (Alpaca) and then off to bed. The Alpaca actually just tasted a bit like a steak but with a finer texture.
They warned us that one of the possible symptoms of Altitude sickness can be insomnia, now I never thought I would suffer from this but I would have been lucky if I had more than 1 hours sleep. Up early and off to Lake Titicaca for a boat trip out to a floating reed island that the local Indians create by cutting sections of the roots about 1 metre deep off the bottom of the lake, cleaning the dirt off them that then allows them to float to the surface. They tie all these sections of root together to from the island then lay another metre of reeds in a criss-cross pattern over the top and therefore create the floating island. These reeds have to be continually replaced as they break down. Some of the islands are probably close to an acre however the one we visited was more like the size of a normal ¼ acre block. There were 5 families living on the island in homemade reed houses and they showed us around, dressed us up in local costumes (The local women all had incredibly large hips that were not helped by the dresses that they wore.), and tried to sell us some of their craftwork. A very interesting experience but life would get a little boring after a couple of days. We also experienced a short trip in a reed canoe paddled by two of the locals from the island we visited. We were farewelled by the island women singing in their native tongue and then translated into English which happened to be “My Bonnie lies over the Ocean” and “Row, Row, Row your Boat”
After leaving the island we had a three hour boat trip out to Amantani Island where we were going to spend the night with a local family from the Quechua Tribe. We were met by a group of women again with very large hips; we were all assigned to one of the women and then walked up the hill to our home for the evening. The trip up the hill was bloody hard and we needed to stop several times to catch our breath, language was also going to be a problem as they have limited Spanish and virtually no English. Our “home” is very basic with a rather interesting climb up a “staircase” across a very dodgy landing and through a 4 foot door. There were four single beds that all smelt of wood smoke and had varying degrees of discomfort so it was necessary to try and find one that suited your body shape.
Once settled in we went down to the kitchen to see how our lunch was being prepared. Mmmmm another eye opener, our “mum” had lit the fire in a room that was probably 2 metres by 3.5m with a dirt floor and no chimney. You can imagine the smoke in the room but we were hungry and this was a new experience. We met the two children, Jimmy 8 and Mario 4, nice little kids really and they shook our hands said Hola and introduced themselves. Robyn helped with the potatoes (they are predominately vegetarian except for special occasions when the odd guinea pig, sheep or pig is included) Mum cooked our meal in front of us peeling the vegies, wiping her nose, transferring water from one bowl to another and washing our plates in some more water and then drying them with an old rag.... we were hungry and tucked in to a large bowl of veggie soup and then potatoes, yams and fried cheese. After our late lunch we went over to see the locals playing soccer but decided not to join in as I am still not up to physical exercise. It started to thunder and then rain so we took shelter in a small rustic shop/ bar and enjoyed a hot chocolate and baileys before attempting to climb to the top of the island. I say attempting because we managed to get a little over half way and decided to head back down for dinner.
Dinner was with Momma, Poppa, and a couple of other relatives in the semi darkness of the kitchen and two candles, we had a large bowl of maize soup followed by some more potatoes, diced and fried this time and rice (not sure if I could eat potatoes again and certainly we both struggled to get it all down.) after dinner they organised a “Fiesta” for us with dancing, music and a beer. Only one beer because I didn’t want to go down the stairs to the toilet in the middle of the night. It was a fun night, a little over tourist but we all had a dance and enjoyed ourselves (all dressed in their typical dress – very becoming).
Another of the side effects of altitude sickness must be needing to pee every 30 minutes because I had my second sleepless night and had to traverse the dodgy landing and staircase at least 4 times in the night and believe me it was bloody cold. Robyn and I shared a single bed for warmth but also because it had the least dips of any of them. An incredibly long night with very little sleep so we were up at 6 and headed down to another smoke filled room for pancakes and Coca tea.
After breakfast we were offered a small bowl of warm ware to wash our hands in but by this stage we were over the home stay and ready to get back to civilisation. An experience like this makes you appreciate running water, effective toilets, electricity and hygiene. If we survive this without getting gastro or a cold I will be very surprised. Said our thankyous and goodbyes, hopped on to the boat and settled in for the three ½ hour return, some sleep and sharing stories with the other guys on the tour. I think Robyn and I might have drawn the short straw as far as facilities and hygiene were concerned but it was an experience and we survived.
On the bus to Cusco now – 6 hour trip that take us up over a pass at 4338m then down to Cusco. Hopefully going down to 3500 metres might alleviate some of the stresses on the body and get us ready for the big walk on the Inca trail.

Ch0w for now Will post again after Macchu Pichu as we leave in the morning(sunday) and return on Wednesday night.