Colca Canyon

I usually try to steer clear of popular tourist destinations; I’m not a huge fan of sharing my “unique travel experience” with a bunch of Ex-Officio clad, guidebook toting tourists.  However, after spending 5 years making a living selling Ex-Officio clothing and guidebooks, and at times being one of those ostentatious tourists myself, I have to sheepishly admit, that many popular destinations are popular for good reason and are worth a visit. 

The widely-visited Colca canyon made that list for me.  At 4,160 meters deep, measured from the tall peaks that surround the canyon-proper down to Colca river, the Colca canyon is touted by locals to the be the deepest canyon in the world: twice as deep as the Grand Canyon.  The respectively low-angel canyon walls give is a look entirely different than the Grand and I can’t fathom doing a just comparison.  My opinion: you really have to see both; their unique environs give the Ex-officio or Patagucci clad interloper distinctive and awe-inspiring experiences.

The week and a half before leaving for the Colca canyon, one of Peru’s famous GI gatecrashers relegated Alex to bed, bathroom and small, slow outings into town.  Between my Awamaki duties I would come home, and congratulating my iron-clad stomach and intestines try to be as supportive as possible.  Thanks to Cipro, Alex was mostly recovered, although almost 10 lbs lighter by the time we wanted to leave for the canyon. 

Thursday morning came around and we were ready for our adventure:

Tickets for the overnight bus to Arequipa purchased?  Check.

Rain clothes packed? Check.

Backpacking supplies packed? Check. 

Everyone in good health? Check.

I headed out for one last home visit before leaving for Cusco to do grocery shopping and catch our bus.  Walking back from Rumira my stomach started to grumble.  Maybe that breakfast smoothie was a little too much?  It started doing a jig. I walked a little faster and tried not to think about.  It started yelling at me.  I made it home just in the nick of time.  Alex wonders if I’m feeling good enough for an overnight bus?  Hopefully it will pass, I’d like continue on with our plans. And if I just don’t eat until we reach our destination, how bad can it really be? If there is nothing in me, then there is nothing to come out.

In Cusco, while Alex grocery shopped for our trip, watched our packs and dealt with the last minute details, I introduced myself to the bathroom in the supermarket, restaurant and the bus station.  In an optimistic mood, I boarded the overnight bus.  Without any food, my stomach was calming down and in my excitement for adventure I didn’t even notice the fever starting to come on.

An hour into the ride, the American action movie dubbed over in Spanish and playing at top volume started to irritate me.  Everything was uncomfortable and my head hurt.  I was hot and then cold and was reassessing the comfort of the seats.  I put some ear-plugs in and started to doze off. I woke up hyperventilating and incredulously realized that in addition to everything else, I was motion-sick.  I spent the next 5 hours racing back and forth from my seat in the humid and hot passenger section to the tiny, chilly and wet bathroom.  Most of the time was spent huddled on the urine soaked bathroom floor dry-heaving into the toilet.  So much for those iron-clad internal organs. 

Half-way through the trip, Alex touched my arm and realizing that I was burning with fever, ordered me to take a Tylenol.  After balking at the idea of introducing anything into my stomach I obliged and less than an hour later fell into a fitful sleep, the Tylenol tempered my fever and in turn made me less susceptible to the bus’ motion.  Have I mentioned, in this blog post yet, my impeccable taste in travelling companions?

We made it to Arequipa and only had an hour to wait until boarding our next bus.  The bumpy, sinuous ride to Chivay was uneventful and the scenery captivating.  After being used to the rain-soaked Ollanta, southern Peru was like a new world.  To the left, a train track winding down and around the valley and then up the rolling hills reminded me of a western movie.  To the right, rock faces gave way to barren-looking flat land that butted up to imposing snow-capped mountains. 

Like most day buses, there was no working bathroom.  The ride was scheduled to take 3 hours; it took 4.  Another passenger, a man, peed in a plastic bag and tossed it out the window.  I decided to hold it. 

After a 4 hour wait in the bus station, another 3 hour, turned 4 hour bus ride took us from Chivy to the little town of Cabanaconde, the jumping off point for our Colca hike.  We arrived at the hostel Pachamama at 7:30pm on 2/25. We had left Ollanta around 3 pm on 2/24.  I hadn’t eaten anything, drank very little and felt like hell warmed over the entire way.  Our little room at Pachamama was a little piece of heaven to me.  We both slept for 12 hours and woke the next morning ready to hike, or really, ready for anything that wasn’t a bus. 

The photos from the top of the canyon don’t do it justice (but check them out on my fb anyway).  I stood there; 3,000 feet above the river, watching condors soaring below me but still high above the ground themselves.  The dry dirt crunching under my sandals made me feel like a part of the panorama and the low floating clouds that almost kissed my head were just the lid on the landscape.  It was like the whole scene could have been bottled up and sold in the dairy section.  But it would be a purchase that was impossible to imbibe all at once. 

We hiked the 3,000+ feet down to the river by noon.  At the bridge we were surprised to encounter a man waiting to check tourist passes and keep count of those passing through.  We were numbers 33 and 34.  Unexpected, we had only seen one other tourist during our hike that morning.  The morning’s exertion had convinced my body that food was a not an opponent to be rejected with force but a supporter to be welcomed, though still trepidatiously.  Good timing, for after lunch we ascended 1,500 feet before our path flattened to parallel the river. 

We hiked through thick, overgrown groves of trees; a stark difference from the arid landscape I had stood in, while peering down into the canyon just that morning.  We hiked past small villages, where every other house seemed to be a make-shift hostel; but surprisingly, we encountered very few people.  We hiked with each-other in rapt conversation and we hiked alone with only our thoughts. 

It wasn’t dark yet, but the incan terraces made a perfect camping spot and we turned in early, exhausted from our day of hiking and the previous day’s travel. 

The following morning we hiked back down to the river.  Venturing just off the beaten track we followed a small stream up just below its source and spent a lovely hour relaxing in the grass and bathing in the stream before setting off back up the canyon into town. 

The remainder of our trip and return journey to Ollanta was delightfully uneventful.  I am proud to say though it did include an obscene amount of eating on my part, a compensation for the circumstances of the initial voyage.   

Some Videos on Awamaki's work-check 'em out!

Copied from my FB posts, sorry for the redundancy for those of you that check both:


If any of you follow my blog, this is the young man i mentioned in my first post from Peru. The video was made in an attempt to convince apple to donate therapeutic ipods/ipads (they actually have therapeutic apps!) to Awamaki for Alex and some of our other patients that can benefit from PT.  While I still wonder about the sustainability of some of our work (as I mentioned in that blog post), I have been convinced of the utility of PT for the CP patients here.  Another CP patient that I have been visiting and working with has been benefiting from PT and similar interventions for a number of years and his quality of life is much higher than what you see in this video (Alex just started PT a few months ago).  As I posed in spanish as a comment under my last FB post: our programs aren't perfect, but we are trying.  Thanks all for your great comments and support!
http://vimeo.com/21416707

This fun, short video is on Awamaki's weekly chocolatadas in the local health clinics. Trish did a great job putting the video together and yours truly has a little face time.http://vimeo.com/21378817

some thoughts and stories on the day...

Alex has gone back to the states and I am once again flying solo in Peru.  Surprisingly enough, I’ve been dealing with the contrast of having constant interpersonal interactions for five weeks straight, to a significant amount of alone time very well.  Now I have an excess of time for work, reading, running and writing.  Hopefully the extra time will translate into some amazing blog posts for y’all.  For now I’m going to leave you with this update until I can pull together descriptions of our backpacking trips in the (understandably) popular Colca Canyon and to the amazing, not yet tourist-ified, impressive and burly Choquequirao. 

Worth noting, in the interim however, is that I made my first two sarcastic jokes in Spanish this evening, of which I’m quite proud.  I spent the last month communicating primarily in English and have made my personal goal for the next three months, besides eating as many mangos as possible, is to work on my lagging Spanish language skills. 

Luckily, I was given a wonderful opportunity for lingual growth today.  It was my host brother Noel’s birthday, so I accompanied my host family to Noel and his wife’s house in a neighboring town.  There’s nothing like a group of drunk, happy people, with whom I’m comfortable (and a little alcohol for myself) to facilitate language learning.  

I’d also like to share a story on one of the two patient visits that I did today.  I haven’t blogged much about the work that I’m doing with Awamaki, but I would like to begin and today would be a great introduction to one of the individuals that I visit on a regular basis. 

My first visit of the day was to N, a wonderful, slightly eccentric elderly lady who has no use of her legs and limited hearing.  This spunky woman whose eyes have a mischievous sparkle speaks a semi-coherent mixture of Quechua and Spanish and ignores the topics I bring up that she doesn’t feel like talking about (where her hearing disability comes in handy for her).  This quality of hers, paired with my poor Spanish skills and non-existent Quechua skills make for interesting interactions.  Although, I must note, we usually spend 3-4 hours a week in rapt conversation and never seem to lack for discussion topics.   Her favorite subjects to discuss: my ratty hair which she really wants to brush, my holey jeans which she really wants to patch, my skinny figure which she wishes me to enhance, her family (topics good, fun, sad and bad), my family, her physical ailments and the sex-related jokes that she tells just so she can watch my reaction.

N is forever trying to feed me when I visit.  Today I arrived around 9 am, just after I finished eating my breakfast at home.  She was in the process of eating her breakfast, soup, and of course offered me some.  I declined, but when she offered me matte (usually how coca tea is referred to here) I happily accepted.  A little white cup was shaken dry and she scooted herself closer to the teapot sitting on the wood-powered stove in the corner of her tiny, one bedroom, dirt-floored hut.  I couldn’t help but notice little stones filling the clean-ish white mug as she poured in the green-tinted water.  I thought that maybe the tea was already steeping in the pot; hopeful thoughts to make myself feel better about the water’s appearance.  She then placed a significant amount of her small stash of instant coffee into my cup with her dirt-covered fingers.  I watched, cringing slightly as she selected two heaping spoonfuls from her sugar bowl, stirred, tasted, and went back for another large spoonful of sugar.  The resulting concoction sat in my lap for a few minutes as I trepidatiously sniffed the hot black-ish liquid waiting for it to cool.  I managed a few sips before needing a break.  I love sweets, but saturated sugar water with a bitter coffee aftertaste isn’t my cup of tea.  I did the best I could while N looked on, practically heckling me to drink faster so she could make herself tea since that was the only cup she owned. 

I drank about a quarter of it before telling her that I was incapable of drinking the rest quickly and she should help herself because I have coffee at home. She proceeded to show me how it was done by downing the rest in less than 15 seconds. 

A Clandestine Trip to the Ollantaytambo Fortress (Inca ruins)

Usually a S./ 70 entrance fee, the Ollantaytambo ruins are relatively easy to sneak into, especially under the cover of darkness.  While I haven’t been there during the day for a true comparison, the perspective that the scene offered me was much different and preferable to the one that would have included hordes of water-bottle and guidebook touting tourists: 

Grey-blue clouds cover all but the most tenacious of the moon’s rays and those that do emerge are tinted with the colors of their would-be captors. 

Across the valley to the east, two long strips of clouds ride along the edge of the mountains, just above where the now invisible ruins of the Incan storage buildings lay.

Just above us on the hillside, a few puffs of clouds hang just over the highest visible ruins. 

The clouds to the south and across the river hang like chunks on the mountainside.  Under which, I know my favorite running path lies.  Just imagining its existence is a stretch, the shapes so foreign and foreboding in the dark. 

The valley to the west, where I will be working in a health clinic bright and early tomorrow morning, is filled with thick and heavy clouds.  Like a stew simmering overnight, waiting for the morning to revel its true flavor.

A thin mist descends on us as we stand in the temple of the sun.

Such a juxtaposition, the ancient Incan ruins in which I’m standing, a solid and pragmatic reminder of a foreign society that now lives only in history books and murals; while looking upon a modern city with cars moving along the cobble-stone streets, people walking home from the bars and electric street lamps lighting the way for all. 

Sanding in what I am told is the religious center of this ancient city I am reminded of this morning’s catholic mass, held in honor or Awamaki’s Anniversary.  Throughout time, culture and geography us humans always seem to find the common thread of looking for something larger than ourselves.  God, god, Gods, gods, myths and stories, Science. Why is this?  To interject more meaning into our short witness of this world?  To make ourselves feel better about our inadequacies? Worse? To control? To relinquish control?  Because there is some truth in all the myths and stories? Or do we just wish it to be true?  I don’t think I will ever know. 

Many of my activities make me feel small in place: be it comparing my life to a vast plain, huge mountain, the stars or the universe.  Tonight, I feel small in time.  History is humbling. 

If you are interested here is a link to the wiki article on Ollantaytambo, which has some info on the inca ruins: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ollantaytambo

if you don't mind ads, this page actually has better info on the ruins/fortress: http://www.destination360.com/south-america/peru/ollantaytambo

Alex and Chelsea’s Lares Hot Springs Weekend Adventure

The hot springs just outside the town of Lares is a place I heard about when I first arrived in Ollanta.  I instantly put it on my mental to check out list.  When I attempted to recruit others to join me one weekend, in addition to suggesting I hire a guide, the long term volunteers suggested I wait to tackle the trek until after the rainy season.

But hey, I’m from the Pacific Northwest, I can handle rain. And really, how hard can finding the trail really be?  Alex entertains similar sentiments and is usually willing to get in over his head on adventures, just like me.  The perfect companion for such a trip, I’ll recruit him upon his arrival. 

He didn’t disappoint.  In the week after arriving, while I was working, he shopped, packed, asked others for advice on route-finding and studied topo maps. 

Making our way up and across the hills above Patacancha, I feel that we have actually transported ourselves from our previous life, even more than when we’re in town.  For all the outdoor sports I enthuse over, I usually travel for the people and the culture.  Give or take some details, mountains are mountains and grass is grass and 14,000 feet is 14,000 feet no matter if you are north or south of the equator.  But here I am, in a natural setting so different from any of the other expeditions I have been on in the states or elsewhere. 

Smoke is rising off the paha roof from each of the adobe huts we pass.  The llamas look at us foreigners with curiosity and suspicion as their newborns stand on shaky legs to nurse.  We pull out my ipod and view the picture of the topo map Alex snapped before leaving, the best we could do with limited access to maps of the area.  A local man seems to be waving us upwards.  A suggestion we decide not to take in lieu of following our interpretation of the directions, a suggestion that we later learn we should have taken. 

The chromium green round clumps of spongy grass make me feel like, with each step, I’m bouncing on mini-trampolines.  As we ascended the ever-steepening slopes, the spongy clumps give way to a flat star-shaped plant that so tightly hugs the ground it looks and feels like walking on stylized Astroturf.  Water is everywhere.  It isn’t raining. Yet.  But the raging streams, overflowing ponds, and seeping ground remind us that we are, in fact hiking in the time of the rain as my host family keeps reminding me.  Alex says the sky here leaks.

After four hours of hiking we arrive at the 14,500’ abra (pass), Ipsayjasa.  The heavy mist wets our jackets, but it still isn’t raining.  Yet.  Even with the visual limitations, the view is amazing with laguna Ispaycoeha behind us and in front, numerous snow-melt streams so steep one cannot say where river transitions to waterfall. 

We descend a few hundred feet and reward ourselves with a fabulous picnic.  I once again congratulate myself on my choice of backpacking companions as we feast on homemade bread with avocado, apples and trader joe’s almond butter with flax seeds (an aside on nut butters: they are nearly impossible to obtain here.  Alex brought me two containers from trader joes, I also received a number of Justin’s pb packets sent down in a care package from some of my amazing boulder friends.  I wish I could adequately communicate the joy that those treats have brought me).

We begin hiking again.  Now the grasses have turned to mud.  I give up on trying to keep the inside of my boots dry.  My white pants are brown with mud half-way up to my knees.  We descend through a marshy valley, maybe a mile wide, home to numerous sheep, alpaca, llamas, horses and sprinkled with currently inhabited adobe huts built next to abandoned Incan ruins. 

We didn’t even notice when it started to drizzle.  Already wet from the mist and mud, it doesn’t make much of a difference anyway.

After two and a half hours the valley we were descending poured into a perpendicular valley, deeper, narrower, and more obviously carved by ancient glaciers.  Magnificent, angry rivers morph into waterfalls and tumble 3000’ from their high hanging tributaries to the valley floor below.  Our lungs rejoice and our knees brace for another 1500’ of down-grade. 

By now the drizzle has graduated to rain.  We give up our slippery path for a gravel road when we reach the quiet town of Huacahausi.  I hear that cars travel this road, but I have my doubts as we traverse the third river at least 2 feet deep, carving its own path across the road. 

The valley is breathtaking, but we barely notice the ruins and the vistas.  I think it is safe to say it is pouring rain now. We have been hiking for 8 hours.  I feel mud between my toes every step I take, inside my boots.  When we stop to eat, my hands don’t work.  I didn’t realize that it was that cold.  Conversation early that morning was so easy.  I decide to orally review my Spanish lesson from the previous day. Bad idea, now we are cold, tired, hungry and cranky with each-other. 

At 4 pm, nine hours after leaving Patacancha and 11 hours after leaving our beds, we spy manicured grounds: fancy rockwork, beautiful flowers and pools of water with smoke rising off and mixing in with the mist. 

We have arrived. Situated next to a raging set of class five rapids, the Lares hot springs park is a paradise.  There are six pools of differing temperatures and shapes.  The water feeding the side by side showers situated next to the pools must come from different sources; their temperatures vary along with the color and texture of the residue left by their mineral deposits and thermophile algae growth.  The manicured grounds include grassy spots perfect for tents.

The minute our sodden clothes are replaced by our swimsuits and our achy feet are submerged in the hot water, our bad moods dissolve along with the sweat and mud. 

After enjoying the baths a bit more Sunday morning we hike with all our supplies down into Lares proper to find breakfast and catch the bus that will take us home.  While skirting around a fresh mudslide in the road, we pass a woman that asks us if we are planning on taking the bus to Calca.  When we reply yes she hollers some information about the trip over her shoulder.  Alex and I muse as we continue walking: did she say there wasn’t a bus until 1pm, or did she say there was no bus at 1pm.

We arrive in the tiny town of Lares and easily find breakfast of chicken soup, but struggle to find reliable information about the bus.  I decide that it would be wise to wait until 1pm, when the bus is scheduled to arrive, before becoming worried about our return trip and my work schedule for the following morning.  While waiting, a huge ruckus from the other side of town ensues: a series of rockslides slamming into metal sides of the community market; a second reminder of the dangers of traveling on steep roads during the wet season.

My relief is tangible when a combi shows up promptly at 1pm.  We shoulder our packs and prep for our ensuing, potentially harrowing drive.  The combi driver tells us and the growing crowd that the bridge between Lares and Calca has been washed out and the drive is impossibly dangerous.  He will not be going.  Local woman implore him that they must go to meet their husbands whom they haven’t seen in weeks.  The driver is unmoved and he doesn’t even deign to answer Alex’s questions.

We look at each other and know what must be done.  Wet clothes, muddy shoes and tired shoulders are put back into action.  We stop by the closet grocery store, stock up and start hiking back towards the mountains between Lares and Patacancha.  This hike is to be a bit different.  On our way into Lares, we descended 1500’ more than we ascended and we benefited from a taxi ride between Ollanta and Patachanca, cutting three hours off of our hike yesterday.  It is not guaranteed that we will find a ride on the return, but the extra elevation is.  We start hiking at 1:30 pm.  I have a meeting at 3pm tomorrow in Ollanta.  That is our goal. 

Our spirits are much higher as we climb the road between Lares and Huacahuasi, our attitudes much like they were Saturday morning when we set out.  I can’t help but wonder where that barometer will be after 9 hours of hiking. It is raining non-stop.

Our impromptu campsite near the top of the steep glacial-cut valley teases us with spectacular waterfalls that are barely visible through the fog.  We eat our sardines and avocado and fall fast asleep.  I wake in the middle of the night from a dream (or was it a nightmare?) of fire-fighters pointing their hoses full blast at my tent.  Right, I remember where I am.  Not a dream, it is the rain in full force.  I lay awake awash partly from the altitude, partly wondering if my tent can handle the Peruvian wet season. 

By 6:30a the rain has abated and I open the vestibule flap to a scene of waterfalls crashing into the valley below us, Incan ruins on the hillside beside us, snow-capped peaks above us, and curious llamas peering into our tent as we gaze out.  It is valentine’s day morning and there is no other place I’d rather be, and no other person with whom I’d rather be sharing it. 

I trade my warm and dry long underwear for my wet clothes shoulder my bag and head for the abra Ipsayjasa.  It leaks rain most of the day.  We arrive in Patachanca at 1 pm. We can make it to Ollanta in time if we hike straight through.  But both of us are hurting, wet and tired.  We stop by the Awamaki sponsored weaving center in town and find to our delight, three volunteers, about to return to Ollanta, who have room in their cab.  Before leaving for home we are welcomed by a local family and given hot tea, rice and a fried egg.  I want to embrace them to show my gratitude, but that would just serve in making someone else muddy and wet too. 

Our cab ride to town was not without incidence.  The wet spell that had destroyed the road to Lares had affected this road as well.  We pass several small landslides that were not present two days before and marvel at the raging river which has now superseded its banks and flooded the road in spots.  Halfway through we stop behind two other combis stuck in a knee-deep mud-pit/landslide and it took 4 people including Alex and I, to push the stuck combi through while avoiding the 400’ cliff to the valley floor.  

We walk into our homestay, mama grabs me in a tight embrace and picks me up.  Twice. 

I was so worried about you.  And so was my husband.  We thought you were sick, lost and in trouble on the mountain. 

The rest of the afternoon she keeps giving me hugs and tells me how happy the family is to have us back.  We are sus hijos tambien, her children also.  I realize that for the duration of my stay in Ollanta, I will live with this host family.  Most volunteers rent their own houses for a fraction of the cost of a homestay.  But this is my Peruvian family; I can’t leave. 

Mama heats up water for us to bathe.  The first time here I’ve been a diva enough to ask for hot bath water.  I think we deserve it this time. 

Photos from our adventure can be accessed on my FB site (once my internet connection is fast enough to support an upload, hopefully soon).  Follow the link from my last post if you are interested.  

I've finally posted some pictures!

This is just a quick post to tell you that I finally posted some pictures: a  few of my life in Ollanta and a bunch from my Lake Titicaca weekend.  It was easiest for me to post them on FB.  For all my non-facebooking friends, I made the album public so you need not have an account nor be my FB friend to view them.  Check them out here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?fbid=1665738601352&id=1173879859&aid=2090222

On a side note, I had an amazing, crazy adventure this weekend.  Check back soon for an exciting blog post (and associated pictures) soon.

c

Lake Titicaca weekend (a week later…)

Far across the blue bay-like lake, framed by grey puffy clouds, the twinkling lights of Puno remind me of a life so distant to my present in reality yet so close in time and space.  The two lonely shirts on the line dance to the rhythm of the wind.  I stare at the neon red flowers that could tickle my feet if not for the pane of glass that separates my reality from theirs.  Inside the dining room, warm in my long underwear and alpaca socks, cradling my cup of tea, I shiver as I sense the present moment.  I ponder what mysterious and fortuitous succession of events led me to be so lucky in life. 

Lauren and I arrived in Puno after a 9 hour bus ride from Cusco.  As we neared the Duque Inn, the accommodations that fit our travel style and budget, or so said Lonely-planet, I felt a little like Dorothy in Oz.  We had traded in the quaint, mountainous, beautiful Ollana, for a big, loud, dirty city and it appeared that our hostel of choice was in the seedy part of town.  The inside of Duque was a stark contrast from the slightly sketchy road on which it was located.  The owner and the woman I took to be his wife were helpful, kind and welcoming.  It was here that I took my first non-frigid shower in three weeks.  No, my homestay family does not have hot water and as proof, you only need look at my legs: it is mighty hard to shave ones legs when sporting goose-egged sized goose-bumps.

But I digress.  The tepid shower at the Duque was amazing and our private room for S./35 was clean and the beds inviting.  Braving the streets, we found the cleaner and less-sketchy part of town.  Like kids when their parents work late, Laruen and I took full advantage of our distance from our homestay families and thus our ability to choose our own evening meal: the pizza, ice cream and chocolate covered marshmallows were heavenly and a welcome change from soup and fried potatoes.  Later that night, ignoring the marching-band outside my window (undoubtedly prepping for the following week’s festival) I fell into the deepest sleep I had since arriving in the country. 

The following morning we did the touristy thing and visited the floating islands on Titicaca.  Amid the confusion that seemed to be the norm at the docks we lucked out and managed to miss the touristy-tour boat.  We ended up on a boat with all Peruvians, some locals some domestic tourists, that was propelled by a mixture of luck and a tenacious man who, for the majority of the boat ride fiddled with the rusted, gurgling motor. During his short breaks from nursing the motor, he was the acting bilge pump, scooping water from the engine compartment into the fortunately close WC that emptied into the lake. 

Like many other touristy destinations I have visited, I am glad that I went to the floating islands, but do not desire to return.  They were eerily pretty in the morning mist and when the fog lifted and the sun started to thaw my hands and head, I was intrigued with the islands’ unique construction. The intensity with which the locals peddled their knick-knacks was a reminder that the families whose homes we were invading for our own titillation received no or little compensation from the boat operators who gladly accepted our S./10 fare.   The best part of our tour was meeting Guido and his family.  Originally from Cusco with English skills equivalent to my Spanish skills, he was a joy to chat with.  We spent much of the tour with Guido and his cousins and then accompanied him and his family afterwards for a walk in Puno and lunch of Ceviche at the local Mercado. 

That afternoon we took combis from Puno to the stunningly beautiful and less-traveled Capachica Peninsula and into the small town of Llachon.  Our ride from Capachica to Llachon was an adventure in and of itself.  Over the tall hats that bobbed in front of me, I counted 21 heads in the 12 passenger combi.  The estimated 25 minute ride was over an hour and not a window was cracked during our stifling ride.  I so looked forward to each time a passenger wanted on or off and the big slider door was opened.  Each time that door slid on its noisy rails, my whole world would change.  The smells of 21 bodies, dusty and dirty and sweaty would be replaced by the crisp breeze coming off the shining water, rushing through the lush fields, slipping between the bodies and hats in front of me and innervating my senses; giving me a preview of the beauty that awaited us outside the combi. 

We arrived at the welcoming home/lodge of Valentin Quispe and his lovely wife, who for S./85 each gave us a clean, plain and utterly perfect room overlooking the sandy beach and neighboring farms, cooked us three delicious meals and gave us use of a double person sea kayak for a few hours.  It was here, that I found the time and inclination to notice little life details such as shirts on the line and neon red flowers.  When I’ve kayaked in the Ocean before, I can taste the salt in the air. The lack of that one sensation was the only detail that made me cognizant that I was indeed on a giant lake and not an expansive ocean as it appeared.  The 4 foot white-capped waves, wind in my face and faint smell of fish all added to the clarity of the moment as did the sand working its way into all my body’s crevasses and the intensity of the sun at 12,000 feet. 

Our time on the Capachica Peninsula was much too short.  We returned to Puno the following evening even though our hosts had assured us that the first combi would leave the peninsula in time for us to make our 8 o’clock flight the following morning.  We already knew enough about Peruvian time to be wary of that plan.  Although neither of us wanted to leave our new-found paradise.