more of the Past.

Of course, upon arriving drearily into Cuzco, the ladies napped. The altitude punishes you as you climb the steep cobbled roads, so the siesta is a must. It rained for the next day or so and so the 5 ladies, including myself, hopped on a bus and headed to Puno. The city that lies on Lake Titicaca, bordering Bolivia. We arrived after a tiring eight hour bus ride and headed on a tour of the floating islands of Lake Titicaca - altitude 4000 meters.



Los Uros. Upon the colonization of Peru and Bolivia, people constructed and moved onto Los Uros to detach themsevles and to maintain their native traditions , speaking either Quechua or Uymara. There are currently 2200 people living on these remote thatched islands. Ranging from a family of two to a family of twelve living on one island. We stayed a night on one of them with a very hospitable and simpatico family. It rained quite furiously through the night, but luckily the day settled into a hot one as we left Los Uros and headed for Taquile Island. Taquile, a natural reserve, which is an enormous island in the middle of the Lake. We ate lunch and went along with the tour, hiking up and through the mountainous isle.
A completely packaged American tourist (i.e. big awkward hat with a flamboyant picture of Machu Picchu in the front, a sunscreened white face, sunglasses from the 80s on a string around his neck, khakis that unzip from pants into shorts if necessary, and a shirt with a picture of some textile fabric and the word, Peru underneath - here, they would call this typical Janqui, or for us, Yankee) kept complaining how his tour group had left him stranded on one of the islands of Los Uros and he couldn´t believe that anyone could be left behind. He had to take another boat to Taquile in order to try and catch up with his lost tour, unfortunately, that meant he was stuck with us, on my freaking boat! He yelled at our tour operator and then once again when we arrived to Taquile. Eventually as we were heading towards the port of Taquile to leave I saw the Janqui complaining again to some Brazilian tourists.
¨Get over it, dude,¨ I said after hearing the story for the fourth time.
¨You know, if that was to happen on a scuba diving trip, they would take away the licenses of the tour operators and guides.¨He said, consistent with every other time he had told the story.
¨Well, I hate to break your bubble, but you´re not scuba diving....This isn´t the states. Welcome to South America, bud.¨I said with a bow and continued walking on with my tour group of Taquile.
-------->Probabaly why so few of us Yankees ever make it down to Peru; the Peruvians dont necessarily take responsibility. Tour guides leave behind people part of their tour, they never tell you lunch is not included in the price until you have no other option for food, peruvian time must always be tripled- if they say one hour, it is really three- and nothing has a fixed price - there is always room for negotiation. Right, Amiga?

After the tour we headed back to Puno and took a bus through the night to arrive back in Cuzco.
Cuzco - Ruinistic. There was a birthday party for me, of course, including my favorite bottle of Scotch, a piñata in the shape of a beer bottle, and a cake that was smashed ever so eloquently into my face at 3 am on the 31st. There was the end of the year dinner in the hostel on the 31st and then a run around the Plaza de Armas at midnight for good luck in the new year. A ridiculous amount of fireworks and firecrackers - one of which accidently hit me in the face and drew some blood. Caution - if you hold a firecracker in your hand and then light it, dont forget to let it go! (otherwise, it might crack and hit one of your friends standing close by). Later on in the night, there proceeded to be lots of Chela (beer) and dancing. And then a few days of rest, to recuperate.

The beginning of 2009, seemed to be flowered with the past. Especially since I was in Cuzco, and most of my days consisted of viewing old Inca ruins. Nonetheless, historically and aesthetically pleasant. My favorites been Salineras and Moray, which were unbelievably breathtaking. (Other than Machu Picchu, throughout and around Cuzco, there are various amounts of ruins, each with distinct functions, resources, capabilties, and explanations of their histories.)

Eventually, after days and days of brick remains with accented fertil green grass, I headed back to Lima AGAIN.