Peru Tour - 8 - Arquipa

1 Jan 2006 – Puno -> Arequipa

Happy New Year!

And I am sleeping in a sagging bed with a bad pillow in a room with no electricity in a house with no running water. It’s back in the dark ages! And my shoulder is hurting from the way I slept. At least I was not cold at night (although I did sleep in my jeans and sweat shirt and all!) Oh the rooster started talking in the morning! I have not heard those for a while.

I laid in the bed till 6:30 am even though I got up at 5 am. It was raining outside so I did not want to even go to the restroom.

Eventually got up – did whatever and washed my face with cold water and got ready to check out. I went down at 7 am to let our host know that we were ready. Placido was already there.  Breakfast was ready! Mrs. Fortunata must have gotten up really early to make the breakfast.  There was baked bread (really good!) and such good pancakes. There was no plate to keep the bread on, only bowls, so it was a little hard to eat all this. She did not open the strawberry jam package, and none of us did either.

Mrs. Fortunata is a great cook, even a good vegetarian one, but I think she could really use some more kitchenware. It must be the poverty there. I wish we had known about that so I could have taken some different gifts for her.

So we had coca tea and got ready to leave. Mrs. Fortunata had already gone down to the boat. I think she took food for the captain of the boat. The trek down was not so bad. The rain had stopped but the ground was all muddy and had small rivulets. We said our good byes to our hostess and left.

I slept part of the way.  Woke up to see Uros Islands again. I am constantly amazed at the people here. They live with so little and I am sure they are happy or they would have left – the city is not far away.

Reached Puno around 11:30 am. Walked around in need for food. We found one vegetarian place that had some pizza – just miserable.  But I was hungry!

Went back to the hotel and ate some snacks (yeah – still hungry). Placido came at 1:30 pm and drove us to the airport. I still slept part of the way to Arequipa. Placido had been a really good and sincere guide. It’s usually hard to find people like that.

We were in Arequipa in 30 mins. The scenery had changed completely. It was all brown, desert like with plenty of mountains but all brown.

Our guide, Alejandro, was there to pick us up. Hotel was good and only 5 blocks from Plaza de Armas. I showered and packed for the overnight trip to Chivay. We took some rest and went out at 7 pm to the Plaza. The walk to it was quiet but the Plaza was busy. We thought we would go to Govinda for dinner but it seemed far away, so we ate a pizzeria. We ordered a small pizza and lasagna but it still turned out to be so much food. Pizza was really good.

Good ending to a good day. Tomorrow we are off to Colca Canyon!

Peru Tour - 6 - Puno

30 Dec 2005 – to Puno

It was a cold night, there was no heating in the room. Could not sleep well but had to get up early 5:45 am. Our wake up call was going to be our own Peruvian guy coming to knock on our door. But he never came. Had barely had our breakfast by 6:45. Shirley was off today so our breakfast was a little bit of a mess.

Our guide came to pick us up for the drive to Puno. There were some familiar tourist faces on the bus from the days before. The bus was quite comfortable. We will stop in many places on the way to Puno – 1) Ardahuylillas, 2) Raqchi, 3) San Pedro, 4) Sicllani, 5) La Raya and 6) Pukara.

The initial scenery was like that on the way to Machu Pichhu – all mountains and river – all beautiful. The valley was clearer i.e. there was more flat land.

Our first stop was Ardahuylillas. Our guide, Manuela, gave us a good introduction about the cathedral.  It was about 400 years old with some of the original paintings still there. After the earthquake and Spanish invasion the cathedral was renovated.  The front wall of the cathedral was covered with gold leaf work. The framework was cedar wood covered with 24 carat gold. It was all really beautiful.

Next stop Raqchi. The temple here is quite different from everywhere else.  This was made of mud on the top, with the bottom is stone. It was shaped like a hut, a row of wall like structures in the middle and two rows of columns of about 8-9 on either side suggesting that the structure ay have been a hut like structure. There were residential quarters behind the temple. Most were made from mud.  It was all very symmetrical except for the first one – maybe it was the priest’s hut? 

On the side there are many silos. This area is very rich agriculturally and they seem to transport grain all over the place. The Inca Empire used to be quite huge – from Colombia to Pacific Ocean into Bolivia.

There was a place for offering sacrifice – usually black llamas as they are rare. There was a huge wall surrounding the temple.  So interesting. I wish I could go back in time for a while to see how Inca people lived. Outside the temple were vendors (of course). I did end up getting some bracelets and toys.

At 11:30 am we stopped at a tourist spot to see more llamas and do more shopping. The baby llama was so naughty, it kept running around and spit at anyone it did not like. Baby llamas are so cute! After 15 mins we departed for Sicuani where we had lunch. This was not the usual buffet. There were a few ladies who had made home cooked meals. We had soup, spinach-corn, Quinoa grain and quinoa mixed with eggs and fried – so yummy!! The desert was custard…good also.

Did end up buying a couple scarfs made of Alpaca wool – really soft. After another 45 mins of driving we reached half way to Puno. This place was 4335 m high (about 14,000 ft.). It was cold and the mountains were quite different. Not barren but not lush either. The scenery had also changed. At this point, La Raya, we could see glaciers far away. So picturesque. There was a huge row of vendors; and I yet again bought another scarf and a cap. Most prices are pretty much the same.

And then hail came down. It hailed for about 15-20 mins while we were on the road. La Raya was just a picture spot stop. The scenery changed again – now it was more barren. There were more llamas to be seen, fewer people, no huts, really large valleys. Mountains were getting smaller. It rained for a long time on the way. I took some power naps!

The bus was leaking! How funny! And I did have tea on the bus, twice – good tea.

Reached Pukara around 3:35 pm. visited a museum of pre-Inca artifacts. Manuela compared the pre-Inca with Egypt – no mention of Chinese or Indian civilization.

The Andean cross that I was curious about came from pre-Inca civilization. This civilization was more into sculptures. However, I think they were very violent, from all the history I was learning.

Passed Julianna on the way. Small city with an airport. It was quite big, but really dirty with garbage everywhere. Almost all Peruvian towns have been this way. We reached Puno by 5 pm. Our wonderful guide Placido was waiting for us. We drove into the city to the hotel. The city is also quite dirty. Our guide told us about the next two days program and luckily we were able to call home to wish happy New Year to everyone.

Puno

We were only about one block away from Plaza de Armas, so we decided to walk there. It was smaller than Cusco’s plaza but still quite nice. Walked around to see the vendors. Bought some more little trinkets. I am enjoying the shopping here. Very different and affordable. Came back and had last of puris for dinner! Repacked stuff for tomorrow. It will be one night stay at an island in Lake Titicaca.

All in all good day – it was a relaxing day, but I can still the pain from the mountain climb of yesterday!