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A Day in the Life - Peru

This is my last night in the frozen city of Puno on Lake Titicaca. I have been wearing all of my clothes to bed at night, despite the eight (no exagerration) woolen blankets my incredibly nice host, Jenny, has given me. That reminds me that I should point a few things out that you might not be aware of:

• There is no heating and no air conditioning pretty much anywhere but banks in Peru. It gets really cold at night in a lot of these places I've been.
  
  
• Hot water is spotty at best. In Puno I have that ingeniously dangerous invention known as the "electric showerhead". There's a braker near the curtain bar that turns it on and off.
  
  
• Cuy is a popular dish here. It is roasted guinea pig. In Pisaq there was a place that had a huge pen of live guinea pigs next to a really big oven. I didn't eat there, but have tried it in Lima. Tastes like chicken.
  
  
• Ice cream, like the ice cream man brings, is everywhere here. And the power of the dollar makes them really cheap. Ive been eating a lot of them.
  

There were more points, but I only seem to remember when I'm away from the computer... at any rate, heres whats new:

Im staying at this place called Kusillo's. It is run by this local woman and her kids. She calls herself Jenny. They are over the top hospitable. They get me tea, book my tours, my bus out of here, are very friendly. Always making sure I have what I need. There are 3 American girls also staying there, but they are long term working or volunteering. I think most have been there for months. How anyone would pick this siberia of the southern hemisphere to volunteer is beyond me, but they seem to like it.

It's actually a nice town, despite the cold. There's a main pedestrian street of about 6 blocks that is packed with locals every night, hanging out.

Yesterday I went to see some ruins outside of town. It was nice, but I don't remember the name. We also got to tour a local family's house. By that I mean an indigenous family, which is very poor. It was pretty interesting. They kept a little nest of guinea pigs. Though Im not so sure I'd like it if Bill Gates showed up to my house with his rich friends and started taking pictures of how "poor" I was.

Today I took a boat tour out to the floating reed islands of "Oros". These are indigenous-built islands. They take reeds and bundle them together and form islands out of them that maybe a couple families and some guinea pigs can live on. The reeds are refreshed every couple weeks or so as the lower ones rot away. They are about 6 feet thick. It is really cool to see. Everything is reeds - the houses, the boats, the signs. They even eat part of the reeds.

After that, we went to the island of Tequile. It is a real island, about 6 km across. I think that's about 4 miles. We climbed lots of stairs (of course) to a great view and meal. The guide told us a lot of stuff, but it was mostly in Spanish and I wasn't really paying attention. It was a really nice day. I had the option of sleeping on the island with a family. Way too cold for that, though.

I met some interesting people on the 3 hour out and 3 hour back boat ride. People from all over. One girl was here just on a two week trip from the UK, but she was a chronic traveller. She showed me her passport and I had no idea there were so many countries, the thing was totally packed with stamps and stickers.

Tomorrow I take a tour bus back to Cuzco (9 hrs ouch!). There I will wait a day and Friday begin my jungle tour.

Now I am in the internet place (duh) and am going to get some cash from the ATM. (They're everywhere, which makes it easy) so I can pay for the bus. Then to eat. Then I will put on all my clothes and try to sleep under Jenny's generous (but necessary) eight woolen blankets.

Mike Stefanik,
Austin, TX