2021 October - Day 11 - Peru - Travel home day.

 Our trip is coming to an end.  We’ve had a wonderful experience here in Peru coming to know a different culture, both current and ancient.  As I travel the world, you quickly realize that happiness has nothing to do with money and things you acquire.  It is all about family, working hard and finding good in the lives we are leading, no matter what the circumstances are around us.

We woke up this morning (Saturday) knowing it was going to be a very long day or set of days.  As a matter of fact, I’m writing this in the Houston airport Sunday morning.  Our day started by making the decision to try and get our Covid testing done use cell data on the floating island.  We wondered if the bandwidth would be good enough.  It turned to work just fine.  We both spent about 45 minutes total to do the test, get a negative result and get all our documentation sent to us and then uploaded into the United Travel Ready application.  For the others, we decided to wait to do their testing in Lima at the BnB that Scott had rented.  More later on that.

Once again, Joel and Lucy, our hosts prepared a nice breakfast for us.  Michelle was kind of feeling ill and was not able to eat much.  She eventually got over it as the day wore on.  But being in the high altitude really gets to you with headaches, stomach aches and so on.  Anyway, once breakfast was done, which consisted of eggs, avacado, tomato, bread and herbal tea followed by fresh Mango and Bananas, we gathered our bags and loaded them on the boat that Joel would use to take us back to the small boat launch in Puno.  But before we left, they asked us if we could have a prayer together.  They are active Seventh Day Adventists.  And they knew that we were members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  I ended up trying to pray in very broken Spanish.  But it was special moment with them.

We arrived at the port around 10:30 AM hoping that our taxi service to take us from Puno to Juliaca would be there.  But it was not.  Scott checked his phone to find that the driver we had lined up was sending his wife.  Turns out he drank to much the night before and was sleeping in.  Too funny.  Anyway, it was a very new van that accommodated us nicely.  The ride to the airport in Juliaca was about an hour which cost us about $38 for all of us.  We had to be there by 12:15 as Marc and Heidi still needed to buy their tickets.  They had a reservation but could not get the credit card transaction to go through.  We arrived at about 12:00 only to find no LATAM offices at the airport.  Eventually an LATAM gate agent showed up and told him that ‘officially’, he cannot allow him to buy these tickets.  That caused a bit of a concern for these two.  In the end, because Marc is a pilot, he had listed themselves as non-revs (stand by) and the agent told them there would be enough seats.  So he looked on the system for that reservation and found it, checked them in.  And in the end, it worked out.  It also saved them `$400 or more since the non-rev seats were really cheap.

The flight to Lima was nice.  I ended up next to Scott and Michelle.  Denise was across the aisle thinking she would have a middle seat.  But…no one took the aisle.  So she was able to slide over.  The fellow next to her was an LDS tour guide named Van Evans.  He takes groups down to Peru on humanitarian missions.  He told me later that he also has a book that he has written named ‘The House of the Lord’ that explores temples ancient and new in South America.  I’ll have to check it out.  We landed in Lima around 4 PM’ish and headed to our BnB.  I say ours, but we only used it for a few hours since our flight was not until 12:45 AM.  Once we arrived there, it was Covid test time for Scott\Michelle and Marc\Heidi.  It all went pretty well except for Heidi’s.  She took the test with a proctor watching.  But after the 15 minute clock expired, the follow up Proctor never came online.  She waited over 30 minutes.  Everyone else…the 2nd proctor came online quickly and validated the test.  Anyway, we agreed to have her refresh her browser hoping it was a connection issue and sure enough, a new connection was made and quickly a Proctor was online and validated her test too.  But she was not a happy camper.  I felt bad.  But the good news, everyone tested negative and got the docs they needed to get back into the USA.

Jillian, they young gal from Sacramento that we had met and helped in Cusco, pinged us since she was coming into Lima too.  She was to be on our same flight.  So we had here use Uber to come to the BnB and go to dinner with us.  She had some cool stories of her adventure hiking the Inka Trail, a 4 day, 3 night hike to Machu Picchu.  It is a 25 mile walk that sometimes was quite grueling.  Funny though, she met another LDS family that were trekking with her.  It made her laugh.  Anyway, we all walked to a restaurant that sold ‘Pollo’ that was BBQ’d turning over a set of coals.  The portions were huge for all of us.  I think our final bill was $26 for 7 people.  So cheap.

After dinner, we retired to the BnB and played an aggressive game of ‘Golf’…a card game the Hayden’s taught us.  It was fun.  At 9:30 or so, we hailed an Uber that picked Jillian, Denise and I and took us to the airport.  Getting through the airport was straightforward, not very quick, but we made it.  Once clearing immigrations, we went to the VIP Lounge for about an hour.  It was a really nice lounge that provided a nice buffet of foods and drinks.  While there, we received notice that we had been given seats!  Yay!!!  The flight left on time and arrived about 7 AM.   But now, the prospect that we can get to SLC looks bleak.  As a matter of fact, my backup plan is to go to Boise and drive home since it is less than a  5 hour drive.  But we shall see.

Update….we waited in Houston, seeing three flights go to SLC with maybe 1 standby getting on.  More and more standby’s joined and the list was around 15 with Denise being almost at the bottom, even with a vacation pass.  In the end, I booked us to Boise at 5 PM and rented a car from Boise to SLC for $95.  That worked out.  We arrived home on Monday at around 2 PM after making the 4 hour drive.  Looking at Houston flights, we would not have got on Monday either.  So it was a good choice to go to Boise, get a hotel, get some rest and then make the drive.  It worked out great.  But such is non-rev, standby, flying.  You never know.

It was a great trip.  Glad to be home…but sad to see it end.

Pictures:

Our bags all loaded on to the small boat that Joel used to transport us to the Puno boat launch.

Along the highway from Puno to Juliaca, there was an amazing amount of these shrines for those who had been killed on this highway.  Way too many.

This is one of the streets we went down in Juliaca.  The town is full of this 3-wheel rickshaws.

This was a Llama or Alpaca transport…..

Joel and Lucy…our wonderful hosts on their floating island in Uros on Lake Titicaca.  I think I said there were over 2000 people living on floating islands in Uros.  And I was told that at one time, one-third of the people were members of the LDS church.   Joel took us to where the small chapel once was and showed us another property the church owned.  But I’m not sure what the membership is now.  And those that are members must have to go to Puno to attend church services and activities.

This was our ‘snack’ in the VIP lounge (Priority Pass) in the Lima airport.  The cute young gal is Jillian who was on our flight and spent the evening with us all at the BnB we had rented.  Scott\Michelle and Marc\Heidi were not flying until 5:45 AM and they wanted to get some sleep…so they rented a BnB near the airport for $50.

Covid testing in the BnB near the Lima airport….with me looking over their shoulders.  We did ours on the floating island.

This is the boat dock where Joel took us to and where we met our Taxi van that took us to the Juliaca airport.

This picture is us getting a bite to eat at a cafe in the Juliaca airport as we waited to go through security for our flight from Juliaca to Lima.

I believe this is us crammed into the van that took us to the Juliaca airport.  It was a new, quite nice, van.

My chicken dinner (with a salad)…for $4 (17 soles).  It was really good.  When our large group of 7 came in, the young waitress just grinned wondering what she was going to do with all these gringos.  One of the funny things was that they only had Coca Cola or Inka Cola ( a native soda) that nobody wanted.  So Marc, Scott and I walked down the street to a tienda and bought fruit juices, waters, cookies, etc for the whole group.  Only $5 for two plastic bags full of stuff.

In Juliaca, the streets were full of these little carriages.  I think someone said that in the Cusco area, they are not legal.  But in the Puno providence, they are.  And they were buzzing around everywhere in Juliaca.

This is a picture of Joel guiding the boat through small channels with large reeds on each side.  At times it was shallow and his prop would pick up floating reeds.  So he had to stop often, lift up the motor, clean the prop and then put it back into the water and re-start the engine.   Was fascinating to watch him navigate the channels in the day time.  And when we arrived, he did it in the dark of night.  Amazing.

2021 October - Day 10 - Peru - Lake Titicaca

 Well, I don’t think I’ve ever had an experience like we’ve had thus far in Puno\Lake Titicaca.  We arrived at the Puno bus station around 8 PM.  They had a van ready for us to take us to the ‘port’ where our host was to meet us with his boat.  The drive to the port was about 10 to 15 minutes.  At some points, I thought our driver was taking us out where no one was to execute us…dirt road, nobody around, etc..  Finally he turns down a narrow road that goes down to a very small boat launch where a few boats looked they have come to die.  Anyway, no one is there.  I’m thinking if this driver leaves us here and our host never comes, this will be our final resting place.  Anyway, our driver stays with us and eventually we see a small light coming up a channel in the water.  Now, there are no lights anywhere around us.  Really dark.  Our host pulls up in a fairly small boat with a small motor on it.  It does have a cover that people can sit under.  We load our bags on, strategically position us by weight and off we go.  He is at the back of the boat.navigating using the motor.  Every so often, he stops, pulls the prop out of the water, clears it off, and then restarts the engine.  I think it was so shallow and there are reeds everywhere that he must be picking some of those up.  Now it is dark, it is cold and this guy is navigating through channels of water with tall reeds on the side.  He has to go slow.  Eventually we get out to a bigger body of water and he can go a bit faster.   To get to this water took about 10 minutes then we were on the water for another 10 minutes until we arrived at the BnB.  When you get off the boat, you step on to a floor of reeds….I’m sure the whole island is made up of reeds that keeps it afloat.  They are a bit we and squishy.  You can see huts to the right and then a few small buildings to our left.  So we take our gear to the first room.  It is there we find out he only has 2 rooms even though we booked 3.  Turns out he over booked and someone is in the third room.  So the Hayden’s and Smith’s volunteered to share for the night.  One of them will get the third room tonight as those folks are leaving I guess.

Our room is very nice and clean.  To get heat, as it is very cold, we have one of those tall outdoor space heaters that you see at restaurants.  It says clearly on it….Only use outdoors!….but I guess he did not get that message.  Anyway, he fired it up for us to get our room warm.  It worked great.  But this morning, I got it started and it just goes out after a few minutes.  Oh well, I’ll speak with him.  The toilet here is a camping toilet basically and after you go you cover what you donated with some form of ‘kitty litter’ as it is only going into a plastic bag.  I feel sorry for the Hayden’s and Smith’s having to share that.  Our bed is very large.  And when you pull back the covers, I think there are about 7 very thick blankets that combined probably weigh 10 pounds on you.  We did sleep warm however as we turned the heat off per his instructions.   There is no electricity to the Uros floating islands.  So batteries are used.  I have no idea how long they are good for or how they are recharged.  But that is what is used.  I had my phone plugged in all night….but it did not charge.  So it is charging using one of my bricks.  Cell coverage seems to be average out here.  But I’m not sure it will be enough band width to do our Covid Antigen test that we need to get done before we fly Saturday night\Sunday morning.  We’ll see.

Our hosts name is Joel.  I think Marc had indicated that we might need dinner.  So his wife had prepared a nice chicken dinner with French fries that we ate once we were settled in.  After eating, we went to our rooms and went to bed.  It was after 10 PM by then.

Waking up this morning, it was cold.  I did get the furnace thing going for a bit and then it just goes out.  I think it is low on fuel.  But the view out of our bedroom is pretty amazing of other floating islands and the lake, or the water way that we find ourselves in.  But laying here, I’m wondering what activities we will do today.  I think our host will give us a boat tour of the Uros floating islands.  But that might be it.  We shall see.  It’s going to be interesting.

We just returned from a boat tour of Uros…the community of floating islands.  There are 2000 people that live on these islands.   Only families from generation to generation can have an island in this community.  All the islands in Uros are for tourism.   There are other islands outside of Uros that are not for tourism.  But there are restaurants, gas stations, little stops and so on.  Each island is decorated a little different and obviously they all have boats.  The channel we are on is about 30 meters deep (100 feet).  Lake Titicaca is hundreds of meters deep in places….much deeper.  The islands are anchored so they don’t move and the foundation is about a  meter of reeds.  The reeds are alive even though they’ve been cut and the bind together to become strong.  The reeds on top have to be replaced every 15 days in locations where we walk.  And once a year, men come and lift the little houses we are on to put need reeds underneath them.  For those that live here, living is free….they have the sun for power, they have the water for all kinds of needs and so on.  I asked our host if he ever wanted to leave here.  He said yes but that it is to expensive to go live in the mountains when life here is basically free.  I asked his wife if they ever use the rooms that we are in to sleep in.  She said no.  Too big.  She said their small huts are warmer and sleeping in the reeds as their mattress is much more comfortable.   And their huts are pretty small.  They wash their clothes in the lake.   We saw a man bath with lake water.  Just a simple different life.  Yet they have set their rentals to be as American as possible.  They have electricity (from a battery), hot water in showers and running water (from the lake).  All good.

Breakfast was really yummy.  Egg fritata with avacodo and tomatos.  We had bread, fresh fruit, hot chocolate, teas (for high altititude).  Pretty good.  Later, we hung out until about 11 AM and then we headed over to go on our tour.  The ladies of the island met us with native clothing that they wanted us to use while we rode around Uros.  Then they rolled out things they wanted to sale us.  We bought a few things.   They did not give discounts.  I don’t think it was too cheap either.  But whatever.  In the end, we did not leave until 1 PM to do the tour.  Now we are back just lounging around.  Dinner is going to be at 6 here on their island.

Tomorrow we leave at 10 AM to get to the port to get into a van that will take us one hour to the Juliaca airport.  From there we will leave for Lima at 2:30 PM.  We are listed to fly at 12:45 AM in the morning.   We’ll see how that goes.  At some point, we need to do our Covid test  And we are not sure that we have quality enough data download and upload to do video.  I might try the test tonight since I can do it 3 days out.  We shall see.

Pictures:

Our bathroom on the floating island.  I’m really wondering if there is hot water for the shower.

The dining hall where we will eat meals while we are here…

This was a really cool shot looking back at Puno lights and the outline of our host Joel navigating the boat.

Our room on the floating island.  It is nice sized and made up nicely.

Us this morning appreciating view from our bed.  It looks like it is going to be a lovely day.

Our tour guide….Joel taking us around on his boat.

I sunned myself so much that my face is scorched!!!  Weather is so nice.  Lazy afternoon.

Breakfast this morning.  Pretty yummy.   Tonight we get Alpaca or Chicken.   Denise and I are going for Alpaca.

One of the little areas on the decks outside our rooms.

Las mujeres and the ladies that dressed them up in native clothing.

Los tres amigos in their Peruvian shirts and hats.

Just what you see around here.  The sun and lake is their livelihood.  It is amazing how they live.

Mujeres bonitas….

Joel’s boat moored to his island.  That is the boat we go in when he has picked us up and has taken us places.

Marc and I just chillin in the sun.  Maybe that is where I got so burned.  And sadly, when I went to get out of the chair, it broke.  The wood was pretty old and rotted.  Couldn’t be my weight!

These ladies were setting up their tienda to get us to buy some things from them that they had mostly made…so they said.  We did buy a few things.

Wash day on the island…..

2021 October - Day 09 - Peru - Adios Cusco; Bienvenidos Lake Titicaca

 I’m writing this as we travel by bus from Cusco to Puno which sits on the shores of Lake Titicaca.  Once we arrive, we will head to a port where our host will pick us up in a boat and take us to one of the floating islands in Uris….a grouping of floating islands on Lake Titicaca.  Interesting….huh?!?!

We were picked up on the street by our BnB at 6:20 AM.  A girl came walking up to us looking for me since I booked the tour bus.  She then made a call and within 10 minutes a van showed up that drove us about 10 minutes down the road to the place where the very large, very nice bus was waiting for us and many other people.  Boy what a difference a day makes.  The so called bus on Inca Rail does not compare to this tour bus on Inca Express.  Roomy, bathroom on board, snacks and so on.

Our drive was to be from 7 AM to 5 PM with a number of stops along the way.  We were told, however, that due to road construction we would probably not arrive until 6 or 6:30 PM.  Anyway, we headed out.  The guy that introduced the bus company to us and kicked off the tour came over and asked if we were Mormones.  I said yes that we were.  He said that he was too but due to his job had not been attending church.  I told him to get going back.  And he said that yes he would.  He was super nice guy.  He then turned to tour over to a local guy that speaks both English and Spanish.  And then off we went.

Our first stop was at a colonial village that had a chapel that had the most ornate decorations on the walls and ceilings.  Lots of gold.  It was small.  But it was very unique.  It sat on a really nice square where we walked around and mingled.  We were there for about 45 minutes.  

We next headed to an Inca archaeological site that demonstrated how a lot of the early Inca’s built communities and lived.  The name of the site was something like Raqchi.  We got out and walked around taking pictures and learning more about the Inca’s prior to the 1500’s and how they lived and made due.  It too was a very nice stop for pictures and just mingling.

As we’ve been driving, it has been fascinating to see how the people live, the work they are doing daily and their dress.  The ladies dress just like you see in lots of pictures in their native Peruvian garb.  They are walking cows, attending to sheep, sometimes with babies wrapped in their native dress on their backs. It is amazing.  Their homes, most made of adobe bricks, half built and very small.  You see smoke coming from their fires that they probably use for cooking and perhaps staying warm in the night time.  I wonder if they have any kind of running water, electricity and so on.  I’m talking about homes out in the farms…not in the bigger pueblos or ciudades.   And all around us are the Andes mountains.  We left Cusco at around 11k feet in altitude.  We will climb to 14k feet in altitude.  And Puno\Lake Titicaca is at 12.5k feet.    So we are up there doing everything to battle altitude sickness.

Our next stop was lunch.  The tour provided an amazing buffet lunch at a really nice eatery with live music and all.  They had soup, salad, chips with guacamole, rice, chicken, some kind of beef and many other things.  They also had some fruits and puddings\flans for dessert.  The food was all really good.  We were there about an hour. 

Our next stop was at the highest point…14k feet in altitude.  I’m amazed I could breathe.  There a little Peruvian woman hooked on to me trying to sell me a small rug.  You can’t show any interest in their things as they will latch on.   But they will barter and I’ve always enjoyed that.  We only stayed there about 10 minutes.

Our next stop was not on the itinerary.  We had to stop for well over an hour due to road construction.  Most everyone got off the bus and just hung out visiting with others.  We’ve met folks from England, Colorado and so on.  It’s been fun hearing their backgrounds and stories.  Two guys are all alone.  One in his 40’s, the other 70.   I think a lot of people travel alone which I find interesting that they have the courage and stamina to do that.

We are now back on the road but I thought I’d get ahead of my blog a bit.  More to come later to let you know how the trip concludes today.

It is now 6:30 PM roughly and we are still on this bouncy bus.  They said we will not get to Puno until 7:30 or 8 PM.  And we still have to get to the floating island.  We were supposed to arrive at 5 PM per their brochure.  But this is South America and Peru.  You just never know.  We did make one more stop at a small museum where they have dug up atrtifacts dating back to 500 BC - 400 BC (Book of Mormon times).  It was kind of interesting to see what they had.

Well, lunch is not sitting too well with me.  I hope I get there without hurling.  It has been two days of trains and buses.  Getting tired a bit.  My home, our cat, my bed is starting to sound better each day.  I know this last part will be fun and then the adventure to get home begins.   I will probably not add more to this blog tonight and start tomorrows blog with details on our arrival to our floating island BnB on Lake Titicaca.  Wish us luck!

Pictures:

This picture shows the small alley way that we would walk, maybe 50 yards, to get to the front door of our BnB in Cusco.  it looks a little rough.  But our BnB for the most part was quite good.

Us settling in on the bus to Puno….much more comfortable than yesterday.

Our bus….pretty nice huh!!!

This is the chapel in our first stop.  I wish I could remember the name of it.  It was a crazy one though.  This is a picture shown outside that Denise took a picture of.   They would not allow pictures taken inside of it.

This is what the church looked like outside it.

This picture shows the little tiendas, most closed, that were in the square.  We were there pretty early.  But a few were starting to open up..  It was a nice, little square.

This was our second stop at the archaeological site called Rancho.  The walls behind us are the walls of the temple that once took up space there….we were told.

You have to like the blue door of this little church at the Raqchi square.  It was not open.  So we did not go inside.

This is a good picture of those temple walls.  Not much left.  Borrow section made of stone.  Top section made of adobe.

You can see the woman herding her cows with a small baby strapped to her back.

The entry point to Raqchi archaeological site.

The group at the restaurant at lunch.  Funny story….there was an alpaca in the back of this place.  Scott went up to it and kind of harassed it and the darn thing spit on him.  Just like home when Michelle gets mad.  We do have a video of it as Michelle was filming while it occurred.  Pretty funny.

Our lunch table.  We invited the fellow on the far end to join us.  He was from England touring Peru and doing humanitarian work.

The buffet lunch…pretty good!

The group waiting on the side of the road to get clearance to go through the construction area.  I can’t sit like that!

Cars lined up and waiting….

This was at a stop just prior to the construction.  It is the highest point….14k feet…that we will go to.  The girls are heading down to the bathroom.

Along the way there was a forest fire that you can see in the distance there.  We are in the high planes of Peru and there is little vegetation other than agriculture.

Our bus driver keeping his engine cool.  Should I be concerned?

This is the stop at 14k feet.  You can see the sign in the background.

This lady wouldn’t let me go.  Wanted me to buy a small alpaca rug.  She started at 160 soles and by the end she was down to 100 soles.  That is $40 down to $25.  I kept telling her that I did not have room in my bags for such.  She worked hard to make it look real small.