The alpacas stared at us through the fence as we plopped off the plane. Adjacent to farms and lacking certain infrastructure such as sky bridges, Juliaca was not a typical international airport. Still, it was the gateway to Puno and the largest freshwater lake in the world, Lake Titicaca.
We were not planning to be the typical Titicaca tourists. Culture is the principal attraction to the lake from which the first Incas came. Nature and archaeological interests are high on most peoples’ lists.
Certainly the three of us were interested in the lake, islands, and people. But we were less than 3 years removed from college parties and had lots of time, and fun, to make up for. Two nights earlier a furious Frenchman yelled at us for being too loud while playing beer games late at night in our Miraflores hotel. The hotel moved us to a room further away from other guests. It worked out for everyone.
“Jesus christ,” Eric said with a narrowed brow while looking out the window. He was grabbing the top of his open window. “Brad, how do you even survive these car rides?”
By now I was used to taxi drivers in Peru. They swerve close to buildings, people, other cars, and even animals, without slowing down as they approach blind corners. I admitted it took some time, and that my iPod was a healthy distraction.
The “highway” to Puno from Juliaca was an almost-two-laned road that drove through communities of adobe buildings and your run-of-the-mill Andean farms. As if the airport alpacas were not enough to tell us we weren’t in Lima anymore, I had already lost cell phone service. Peace Corps provided us with cell phones, which used one of the two major phone providers in Peru. Maybe the signal would return once we got to Puno?
It was late so we grabbed dinner at a pizzeria on the one street that seemed to have restaurants in the city. We discussed what to do the next couple of days over uninspired pizza and some solid fries. Our game plan was to rest up and acclimate to the altitude. The next day we’d sleep in and check out Puno.
This plan would be broken up without our consent.
Delicious Jungle Pineapple, Also Other Disturbances
“Piña. Hay piña muy deliciosa de la sevla. Por un sol. Comprate tu piña”
The sun had not yet risen, yet a scratchy voice emanating from a cheap loudspeaker had been attempting to sell pineapple, apparently cheap and delicious pineapple, for forty minutes already, just outside our hotel room. He insisted the pineapple was from the jungle. As if it could be a local pineapple, miraculously grown at over 12,000 feet above sea level.
I looked over the two narrow beds between mine and the window to the main plaza in Puno. Eric’s head was covered in pillows which failed to muffle out the sound.
“Brad. What the hell is that guy saying”
Joe replied for me.
“He wants you to buy delicious pineapple”
“Goddamn it”
Eric did not want pineapple.
I explained that people get up earlier in the mountains and the man would hopefully leave soon, which he did. They started to sleep off the altitude, but again were interrupted with a parade by all of Puno’s schoolchildren. They marched around the plaza in formation to a band and music, also blared on loudspeakers. This only lasted about half an hour, after which the sounds of a building being destroyed commenced. Again, we couldn’t sleep in.
“BASTA YA!!” Joe yelled in no particular direction.
Enough already!
The altitude didn’t affect me, so I decided to help my friends and get to the root of this current clamor. The disturbance seemed, impossibly, to come from inside the hotel. Down the tight stairway to the second floor, I entered a hallway from where the obvious sound of hammer hitting tiles emanated. In a few steps I found a man holding a hammer, sitting in a half-destroyed bathroom. Piles of broken ceramic surrounded him. His clothes were covered in white and pink dust. I asked what he was doing.
“Rompiendo.”
Breaking.
Ah.
I asked if he could wait an hour, since it was still a little early and my friends were sleeping off altitude sickness. Next to a half-destroyed sink, he sat on his knees and put the hammer in his hands. His expression looked like I just asked him to show him Puno’s pineapple garden. Still, he agreed, and later we got out of bed around 8:30.
Day 1 in Puno
The day was slow, and Puno didn’t seem to offer much except a nice market and a lookout, to which we slogged over 500 steps and where we somehow offended an Aymara woman herding her sheep. She responded by throwing tiny stones towards us.
By evening we ended up at the same pizzeria as the first evening. Eric ordered pasta, announcing he wasn’t going to pay twelve soles for “that pizza”. With the lack of night life in Puno, our plan was to get plenty of rest for our boat ride on Titicaca the next day. And for the second time in as many nights, this plan would fail.
Headaches
The plan quickly fell apart after Joe spotted a $3 bottle of rum on our walk back to the hotel. Paired with a cheap Coca-cola knockoff, we were ready to party up in our room.
Eric decided not to participate. He already had enough of a headache.
A combination of hangovers and lingering altitude headaches made catching the boat tour the following morning an achievement comparable to finishing an Iron Man. I was definitely hung over. And Eric somehow still had a headache.
Joe, in complete silence, put on his boots and wool hat, and made a slow, painful walk to the hotel breakfast, sill in his PJs.
I poured him a coffee.
We miraculously made it to the all-day tour by 8am. Frigid air and a lake that went on beyond the horizon, like a calm sea, killed my hangover. The medium-sized boat stuffed in tourists, and the guide made the same bad jokes in Spanish and English with a raspy microphone just like the one used to sell pineapples.
Titicaca- Worth it?
To this point we weren’t very impressed with Puno or the boat tour. This worsened when we realized the one lifepreserver on board was actually an old tire.
But Titicaca was special. The floating reed islands of the Uros were our first stop. My boots sunk slightly into the squishy surface as the smell of wet straw surrounded us. There were yellow houses constructed with the hay-like ichu grass with solar panels on their roofs. Adjacent to the homes were women in bright, colorful garb cooking meals or sewing garments, none of whom paused upon our arrival. Puno was still within sight. Next we visited the island of Taquile, where we saw a folklore show, ate a late lunch, and walked around a bit.
Taquile is only 2.2 square miles in size, and less than 2,500 people live there. The stone path brought us up and down the small island to a lookout. The afternoon sun gave Titicaca a shimmer I had never seen on a body of water. It warmed me up, and I forgot we were 13,000 feet above sea level. A few fluffy clouds and a bright sky reflected on the lake.
On the walk back we again came into contact with a small herd of sheep, but the owner didn’t get upset this time. The six-year-old boy used a stick to shepherd the animals, and he took out a cell phone to make a call while passing us. We were in disbelief.
“Why does a kid need a cell phone on this tiny island?!” Joe exclaimed.
“What?! How does he have signal!?” I was perplexed and a bit jealous.
Shortly afterwards the sun set and the air became bitingly cold. But we chose to enjoy the last part of the tour on the boat’s outdoor deck, away from other tourists who were scared away by the temperature. Titicaca’s shimmer transformed by the minute as the sun lowered. We talked, joked and looked over the lake towards Bolivia, the Peruvian flag strumming in the wind above us. I think it was the best part of the trip.
We spent the last morning on another dusty highway ride, then arguing with airport officials on what counted as an acceptable form of ID. Eric’s altitude headache disappeared just before we boarded the plane back to Lima.
So we didn’t get to party much in Puno. But on the bright side, we only spent $3 on booze.
