Lago Titicaca

On my second day in Puno, I took a day expedition to the islands in lake Titicaca. First we arrived in one of the Uros Islands. The Uros are a series of floating islands originally artificially created by the ethnic Uros to escape the incas and later the Spanish. The people there have lost the Uro language but they continue to conserve their island way of life in many ways thanks to tourism. The guide Luis, who had lived in Mexico, gave a passionate speech about this love hate relationship between tourism and the Uros. The people there rely mostly on a fee charged to visitors and on the profit from selling crafts and giving boat rides to tourist. The islands are ingeniously built using materials from the lake like the glass and roots of the grass and are constantly replenished with new materials. They also make their boats from the aquatic grass.  

Titicaca is the largest high altitude lake in the world. It get chilly at night and aside from fish and flogs nothing inhabits the lake waters. Well there is a variety of birds. Ironically, due to the low temperatures of the water not many of the lakes inhabitants can swim. The lake is also of significant commercial importance as it is divided among two nations: Peru 60%; and Bolivia 40%. 

After visiting the Uros we went to the Tequile Island. The island is further into the lake and it is populated by some 3k people. The people there have sheep and rely on agriculture and the production of textiles which are considered human patrimony. They people there have a complex set of customs relating to marriage and courting. Among one of them is a hat which is worn in different ways to denote the status of males as it related to relationships. If the hat is all one color the man is married is it is two colors the man is single. If the hat is worn to the right it means the man is dating, if it is worn to the left it means the man is looking for a girlfriend, and it it is worn back it means the man is either not of age to date or not looking. 

For some weird reason our boat back to Puno was very slow and we made it back after sunset. None the less I had an interesting conversation with the guide about literature, whose wife kept calling. He was pretty nerdy but was knowledgable and mention that the indigenous people often made the mistake of giving pity in order to sell their crafts. He argued that they should be proud of their heritage and not resort to such ways to sell things.  

Traditional Uros boats

One of the many Uro Islans

Tequile island 

Tequile Island 

El camino Lares

Day 1- 4:45am 

I have officially become the first victim of the Lares Trail. Only 5 minutes out of our hostel as we walked in the darkish street of Cuzco on our way to our meeting spot to begin our trail; My friend motioned us to look to the yellow tape in the constructions site with the word peligro. As I turned my leg went immediately and entirely into an opening in the middle of the sidewalk. It was a flash back to my Omatepe incident when I fell off the boat in the dock. Fortunately the weight of my backpack tilted me so that I didn't entirely fall in the hole but I did manage to get a nice scare and become momentarily incapacitated. I managed to get up and after making sure I hadn't broke any bones continued on. I guess it gave me a story to tell but it did hurt a bit. Anyways, now that my incident was out of the way the rest of the day was amazing. 

All in all an amazing day. We started off at 8, after an awesome breakfast. I was not prepared for the amount of comfort I would be in; in three night trail. Amazing food; slow pace; tables, chairs, etc. The most exciting part was the awesome views. Inca ruins in a majestic valley with sheep, llamas, and adorable shepherding children. A beautiful river  run the entire length of the valley and recurrent picturesque scenes kept me exited. A plethora of plants also showered the valley walls. At night the sky was illuminated with stars and colorful clouds.

Sheep I'm the Lares Trail

Inca Ruins 

The something valley 

Day 2

Holy smokes it's cold up here in the Andes. Last night was very cold. Very very cold. I managed to sleep enough time but for some reasons kept waking up every now and then. And I refused to go pee pee until the morning. They had told us to bring a water bottle for water. Basically they fill it with hot water and you hug it at night too keep warm. It kept me somewhat warm along with the sleeping bag, supposedly thermal blanket and wool blanket. They woke us up at 5:30 with hot tea; which was awesome. Ate like kings again and then began hiking at 8. We finished climbing up the valley and began going down hill through the pass. 

There were some llama farms and tons of sheep. I did manage to see my first viscacha! The viscacha is a cute Andean rodent that lives in the mountains and takes the sun on top of boulders. That was my favorite event today. The viscacha is in one of Jose Maria Arguedas short stories: El sueño del Pongo.  It is my favorite short story and am glad to finally have met it. At lunch it began to hail and as we made our way towards night camp it began to rain. We then reached a town were some women were selling handmade alpaca clothing. There was a small town there were people grow alpaca and llama. The rest of the way was not so hard in terms of terrain but it kept raining. Our night camp is in a town in a flu vial valley. There is pretty river running near it and there is a fog forest in the hills.

I also just realized what this fog forest means for my clothes; they will never be dry. Even my screen is full of fog and rocio as I type this. It will be an interesting day tomorrow. 

Look from my tent

Andean Lake

Viscacha!

Day 3

Today was easy. We got up late... Or later than any day so far in any case. The night was pretty chill but not too cold. We woke up had breakfast and walked for about an hour to the thermal waters. The thermal waters were pretty nice. First shower in two days. The water was a questionable color in the pool but it felt amazing. A lottle furry dog got into one of the pools. i guess he was trying to escape the hot temperature but ended up in the hottest pool. Then we had lunch and took a bus to Ollataitambo and a train to Aguas Calientes. From there to Machu Picchu! 

This dog started fallowing us on our second day and went with us until we reached the thermal waters. 

My camera was so moist in the morning that the lense couldn't focus for the group pic

Day 4 

Woke up at 4:30 and had a scolding hot shower; is either one or the other here. Then we took a train to the entrance of the historic sanctuary of Machu Picchu. It was an amazing experience. I even managed to take pictures of a viscacha that was running around the ruins. A millipid was not so lucky. I was trying to cross the path when a guide stepped on it. It made the most cruchy sound I haver heard an animal make; I spontaneously covered my eyes and screamed. It was sad I was trying to make sure no one did step on him but the guide was prancing around. 

Anyways Machu Picchu is amazing.  We walked around and went up to the sun gate. There is many rules here. In order to protect the sanctuary due to the high volume of tourist, many things are not allowed. The most obvious being climbing the walls. Which is exactly was an ignorant girl did. I think the guard deleted her pictures. 

Machu Picchu 

Viscacha! 

Travel with friends!