Cusco.

"Hostel, trekking, Inca Trail, how long are you staying?" was what these young men shouted as I and the other tourists arrived to the bus terminal in Cusco. The bus ride was very pleasant and it feels like you are about to go on an unforgetable experience when you get to this old city. The Imperial City, they call it because it was the main city of the Inca Empire. The city where all of the world comes to walk or bus or train to the Macchupicchu, the mysterious city built by the Incas about seven hundred years ago with huge stones, on the altitude, away from the city, an agricultural center. Cusco, Macchupichu and the Inca trail form, definetely, a whole package for a tourist. Cusco, a modern city but is so rich in history. You can see Inca architecture and you also see Spaniard architecture on top of the incas´ buildings. This has a message, the message of the Spaniards "conquering" the Incas. Macchupichu, a calm and amazing city, a wonder of this world, a place where you want to try to explain how the Incas built this perfect place where everybody lived in harmony. So they say. The Inca Trail, a five day hike which has its highest point at 4,200 meters (13,700 feet) above sea level , a trail that was used by the Incas on their time and makes you fantasize about that era, and which ends at the climbing to the Machupichu.
The city of Cusco though has been invaded with tourist agencies, small and big restaurants, coffee shops, night clubs and pubs (huge parties at nights), and the mix of tourists (about 1,000 per day) and locals makes the city look unique. You also have local people, and often from other parts of Peru, working offering "anything" you want. It gets a little annoying when you walk on the streets and people that work on restaurants or tourists agencies pull you in to their stores to sell you something, but if you simply ignore them then you can walk away.
My idea was to trek but after visiting several tourist agencies I found out the Inca Trail needed to be reserved two months earlier. There are about five hundred people walking this trail everyday so they need to control and make this route safe for everybody. Of course, tourists can not spend two months in Cusco or come back whenever there is a spot for the Inca Trail, so the people like me that didn´t reserve in advance has other alternatives. Salcantay, Lares, two day Inca trail, all of them having the final point in Machupichu. They told me the Salcantay hike was a little hard, five day hike, camping, river crossing through cables, 4, 600 meters (15,091 feet) of altitude at its highest point, descent to the jungle and finally, on the last day, walk up for an hour to Machupichu before sunrise. Sold! The price 145 USD, transportation and food included, also the hostel accomodation the final night since the town of Aguas Calientes has no place to camp.
On sunday, one day before of going trekking, I decided to visit another uncle, Luis, who lives in Calca, a town one hour away of Cusco. Before reaching to Calca I stopped in Pisaq. Pisaq has a huge artesan market on sundays so I got off there and walked around. Typical ponchos , chuyos (those hats made of alpaca hair which are very warm and covers your ears as well), ceramics, food. I also witnessed one thief being brougth to the police station. The artesans go really hard on these guys since they take away business by scaring tourists away. I don´t buy stuff when I travel but like to walk around these places. Food is what I buy so I got some boiled corn. The kernels of these choclos (as the corn is called in Peru) are huge. http://www.perutravels.net/peru-travel-guide/art-gastronomy-corn.htm I continued then to Calca and stayed for the rest of the day with my uncle who knew I was coming because I left a message on his answering machine the night before. He doesn´t like to answer the phone. But he loves to talk about all sort of things since he is an oil and watercolor painter and used to travel around the mountains of Peru looking for good material to paint.
I went back to Cusco and didn´t go out that night since I was still a little tired from the night before when I went out and went back to the hostel around five in the morning. Besides I wanted to be fresh for the beginning of my five day hike next morning.

Little by little.

Puno is one of those cities on the south of Peru that few people go. I believe the main attraction was Uros. Several islands that are made of straws. You have to take a boat to this place and you see about three or four families living on each island. They are artesans. There is also a elementary school were three teachers are from Uros and two of them commute everyday from Puno. The first night in Chucuito was spent talking with my uncle Juan. I ate trout for the third time that day. He has been involved with communities work for several years so I was just listening to his and his friends´ stories. Next day he showed me around some inca and spaniard ruins. There are some walls made by the Spaniards on 1,780 (I know because the year was also noted on this walls). They look like they are about to fall which is a shame since the conservation of these ruins has not been the best. He, my uncle Juan, has also rescued some stones that he found while building his hostel. It is very interesting to see and know about this but you need to be a person that is very attracted by this type of things and i am not too involved on it. I find it amazing though that I am touching stones that were worked and used six hundred years ago. He took me also to what is called now the fertility temple, but he calls it an invention for the tourists. He says he has gained a lot of enemies in this town of Chucuito for those theories. "But you have tell it like it is" he says. He doesn´t agree that these fallic stones were use to bring luck or it should be used to bring luck to women to get pregnant. http://www.frommers.com/destinations/punoandlaketiticaca/2880027673.html They were symbols of fertility but not in the way this tourist guides mention. There were once part once of walls and now are planted on this field to increase tourism to the area. http://www.llamatravel.com/photo.cfm?photoid=98
I also went to Uros. I suggested the rest of the group to take a little ride on one of the big boats built with straws. I could also see some of the kids rowing small boats after school.
Later on I visited the Yaviri ship This ship is being worked to navigate again and take people, specially tourists, on trips around the lake. It is an english boat that was brought in pieces to the Lake on the 1,800s. By the end of the dayI went out around the plaza and calle Lima. There were several pubs and clubs open. I decided then to go to some of them and talk to the bartenders and/or owners of these bars. There are a lot of bartenders who flirt with the pretty tourists, others try to get some information as to get what is that they are looking for. I was advised to leave my drink on the table. There have been cases when they put something in the drinks and they you ended up in some hotel without your money. It apparently is something to be careful in tourists places in Peru. I say apparently cause even though I was raised here until I was eighteen I haven,t been exposed to those type of situations for a while so I sometimes assume that everything is cool. But little by little a remember or I just make sure I take my drink everywhere I go.

Peru and Family

As I took the "colectivo" (a station wagon who serves as taxi but to several people, the fee ride is shared among the passengers so it is cheaper than a taxi) my mind was just remembering the days I spent in Bolivia. It was two days short of being a month. To my right the Titicaca lake, still shining and amazing, it gave me a sense that this lake was infinite that it is everywhere. The ride took about fifteen minutes. People from Puno and Copacabana have similar features so I didn´t know if I was travelling with Peruvians or Bolivians. Peru has a lot of people with different backgrounds. People from Japanese, Chinese, Italian, Spaniard, African, etc descents which may confuse anyone including a mere Peruvian. Of course there are the people who look like the Peruvian ancestors, the Inkas, shorter and dark, with straight hair, who makes the majority of the population. But if I may add something, all Peruvians look different but the fact of being born on this land makes it just that : a Peruvian . We all forget where our ancestors came from and a black Peruvian feels as Peruvian as a Peruvian with Chinese background, or Spaniard or anything. It is very, very rare to find a Peruvian who specifies where his /her origins are from. That I like. Of course I also have to add, there is a bigger difference when we talk about social classes, and that brings a whole different issue, which the Peruvian feels more affected by than his/her racial background.
I was dropped at the Bolivian side, Khasani, at the immigration office. They stamped my passport with the "exit" stamp, I walked out about 30 feet and exchanged my Bolivianos for Soles (8 Bolivianos= 3.30 soles= 1 US Dollar) a the store of a man who was also selling chocolates and sodas. I walked then about 200 yards, on an empty road, looking still at the Titicaca Lake, and I saw ahead the Peruvian flag, three vertical stripes, two red on each side and a white one in the middle, waving at the top of a pole. I went ahead then and after getting my passport stamped I took a tricycle, which is the taxi system in this small town of Yunguyo. There are few cars, I imagine a environmentalist would love this place. The gentleman dropped me at one corner where the bus to Puno was heading. I decided to walk a little but seeing the bus almost full I decided to walk back knowing that it will take a lot of time filling out the next bus, which is also the "departure time" on this small towns.
The Titi caca lake was still there, waiting for sunset time. The geography in this part of Peru was similar to the one I saw in Bolivia anytime I was in a bus. The main difference I noticed was that the houses, made mainly of adobe with a type of strong straws were a little more spread out. There were more land and some stores, built with the same material were also painted with graffiti about the presidential elections that are being held now in Peru. The final day will be June 4 between the two finalists: Ollanta Humala and Alan Garcia.
After three hours on the road, I told the driver I was getting of in Chucuito, a small town twenty minutes south of the city of Puno, where the Inca culture also lived in the 1,300´s and where the Spaniards also were present on the 1,500´s to convert the Incas to Catholicism.
I walked towards Las Cabañas, a hostel who belongs to an uncle of mine. This entrance to Peru was the beginning of a different reason for being in Peru. Tourism and visits to family.

Ready to hike

The next day on Isla del Sol, Yasu (yes I had his name wrong on the last entry) and I woke up at sunrise, got breakfast and started to walk at 8:00 am towards the south area of the island. A couple of people told us it would take us about two and a half hours to get there, take the boat at 10:30 am for one and a half hours and be at Copacabana at noon to kill time and lunch and take the 1:30pm bus to Puno-Peru to be there at 5:00pm. Of course we thought about taking pictures and stopping in some ruins. Some of the Tiawanaku ruins. Yes this people were here too. We said thank you and goodbye to Fidel. Yasu was with a little hangover since we drank two beers the night before after our unsuccesful search for a TV to watch the football match. I mentioned altitude has a stronger effect on our bodies when we put it through some normal routines, alcohol feels stronger, digestion is slower so we can not eat as much as we usually do, and it is preferable to eat fruits and drink lots of fluids, and the short of breath can cause headaches, vomiting and dizziness. All this is known as altitude sickness or SOROCHE (so-roh-sheh). There are now some soroche pills. And depending on our bodies and health state the soroche affect us differently. So this lake http://www.virtualtourist.com/travel/South_America/Bolivia/Things_To_Do-Bolivia-BR-4.html which is situated at 3,800 meters (12,467 feet) above sea level will definetely has its way with us. After walking for two hours and checking the most we could of the 115 miles length of this lake from the top of the island we discovered we were running behind. Yasu, fell a couple of times, since he had a bad stomach as well. We realized that we were to miss the boat that would take us back to Copacabana. Our big mistake, or perhaps our big adventure, was to carry all of our 60 pounds of luggage on our backs and fronts. We took several breaks and changed shirts since we were soaking wet because of the heat. The good thing is that it is dry weather. We run into several other walkers going on the opposite direction, but apparently they were just going from the south area to the north as a matter of checking the island and with no weight whatsoever. My shoulders were in pain and Yasu was looking as pale as a piece of paper. He told me to go on, but I refused. We started together, we´ll finish together i said. Once we got to the top of the south area we had to go down and pretended our legs were still fresh to support our weight. We made it down and dropped everything we had on. Yasu collapsed and laid down on the small pier. It was noon, and we had missed the last boat of the morning by half hour. A man offered us to take us for 4 times the price we would normally have paid. Thinking that we would have to pay for lodging if we waited for the next boat at three pm and be in Puno next day we accepted, the numbers added up to the same. We took the boat, the only two in it were us and the captain. Yasu, decided to go back to la Paz since he was feeling very sick. His yoga drills he exercised on the boat during the ride had no effect. He then, took the next bus and I decided to get another fried trout by the beach looking at the this lake again. Immense. Later i got my feet wet in the cold lake and then took the van at 3pm which would take me to the border with Peru, hoping that the immigration office was still open. Goodbye Bolivia.

Isla del Sol

My friend Gonzalo woke up at six in the morning to hug each other goodbye and left to work. It must have been the wednesday after the Holly week (Semana Santa) , I have lost the sense of days. Everyday is a good day. I took a look at the mountains of this city built between mountains and straight to the bus terminal to LAke Titikaka. We waited then, as is usual here, until the van was full of passengers. People may complain but it is a norm. Maybe that´s one of the reason why people look like they have all the time of the world. Others say is the altitude that makes people walk slow since they need to take small steps in order not to get tired to quickly. In any rate, as we rode for about two hours, this huge lake appeared. I didn´t expect it to be this attractive. There are points on which you don´t see the other side. I heard that once but it is different when you see it, when you are there. Times like this makes me wanting to have a compass so I can have an idea where I am, at least a sense of orientation. We got to Tiquina, a very small town where we had to got off the van and take a boat to cross a part tof the lake. There is another boat, the ferry, the takes the van by itself. We continued then to Copacabana the town from where I would go to Isla del Sol (Sun Island). As soon as I got to Copacabana I look for something to eat, but seeing around, and finding it very touristy again I decided to get some cancha (fried corn) and continued to get a boat, a local boat, to go to Isla del Sol. This was a boat made out of wood, local people were going to the island and apparently someone was moving out there. The boat was about to take off so knowing that I wouldn´t know how long it would take to fill out the next one, I decided to jump in with my sixty pounds of backpacks and go to the roof where another traveller, from Japan, was. This colourful boat took about ten minutes to leave so we were on the way to this island which the only thing I knew about was that it was in the middle (at least on the Bolivian side) of this magnificent lake. The ride took another one hour and a half. I want sometimes get there ´on time´but what is that anyways when you are travelling and have nowhere to go or everywhere to go? As the days have been passing by I wonder of the size and time I need to go to more places. It will take a lifetime. Feeling the breeze on the lake, watching the clouds that look like cotton balls, talking to Yaku, the Japenese friend and trying to guess what goes on the minds of the tens of people on this boat we got to the south zone of the island. Here, I saw a bunch of tourists seating by the beach, eating or drinking, waiting for the next boat perhaps. Somebody from the boat, what it looked to be another foreign to these lands, run to his hostel and run back to the boat. Yaku and I asked the people around us if the north side of the island had hostels as well. We decided then to continue after getting an afirmative answer. So another hour on the boat, this time a little colder and breezier. We met Fidel on the boat, he told us he had a hostel and a restaurant. We verbally booked our room with two beds and once on the north side we walked a couple of meters to drop our things. The people moving to the island stayed on the central side of the island and we, as everyone else, helped the family and friends to unload the boat.
We ate a trout with rice and salad and went on to walk to the next town on the island, Challa. We were trying to get a place where they had a TV since we wanted to watch a football match between a Bolivian and Argentinian teams. The Copa Libertadores, which is the SouthAmerican version of the Champions League in Europe. We walked to Challa until sunset and when we got there nobody had a TV. At least, no reception, so we decided to walk back after getting some batteries for our flashlights. On the way to Challa I had paid attention to the road since there were similar roads and we didn´t want to get lost under the stars. Kirei (beatiful) said Yaku, as we looked up every twenty steps to see the stars above us. The sky looked like a infinite black sheet of paper with millions of white dots. The same way as I used to wet my toothbrush with watercolors and spray it on a coloured paper.

La Paz

I thought going back to Cochabamba after Sucre but decided to go straight to La Paz. A good friend of mine, Gonzalo, was waiting for me. I went with him to Florida International University and we kept our friendship. I stayed in his house so besides saving some money I got to experience his daily life and the way a non-tourist lives. La Paz has a lot of things, besides from the big hills like the Illimani, a huge snowed mountain that can be seen from anywhere in La PAz, there is also the Tiawanaku ruins. This was one of the things I enjoyed the most. Since I was a kid in elementary school i was surprised by this pre-inca culture (1500 BC to 1200 AC) which we studied in our Peruvian History class, but I was a little disapointed when I found out that the big ´Puerta del Sol´(Sun gate) was in Bolivia and not in Peru. But it was a blast to finally be there and take a picture of it. Its name , Sun Gate, is not just a name it was used to calculate the seasons of the year so it could be applied to agriculture. After visiting the ruins, we went to the small town of Tiawanaku. They a parade for some saint since it was Good Friday, Gonzalo and I decided to get a beer afterward and were a little nervous and skeptical of getting them since on good fridays alcochol is prohibited on cities and town like these ones. The lady didn´t think twice and invited us to her store to drink the beers. When we were done and the procession was too, we saw everybody carrying boxes and boxes of beer. Our stupid, embedded, catholic guilt was erased in a second.
I went also to the museum of Coca in la Paz and took the ´touching the sky´tour, which takes you to several spots in La Paz. The open roof of this bus allowed me to watch the blue skies and breath the air. The tourist group was also warned not to get up from their seats. I soon found out the bridges and electrical cables were not to high for this bus, or for our heads, if that can give a better picture. I stayed five days in La Paz also because I decided to get a handmade coat. I don´t get myself things when I travel but this leather coat I like. We went out almost everynight. I think that happens whenever you know a local and you are in a big city. I run into several other travellers I met on other cities before getting to Bolivia. We said to get together but it never happened. For this week I didn´t feel like i was travelling. It is funny how I sensed everything different since I was with a good old friend and I didn´t have to worry about where to go or hang out.
Next stop will be the Lake Titicaca. This highest lake on the world which is shared between Peru and Bolivia.