Circumventing roadblocks and the Peruvian border police
We took the train back to Cuzco that afternoon. We had walked the Inca Trail, seen Macchu Pichu and were now drinking and celebrating April’s birthday, just having a great time; we had recruited some of our group members to go out with us that night. All of a sudden, the train came to a screeching halt. What had happened? I talked with one of the train attendants, who guessed that we had hit a small animal. Finally, as time passed, we came to learn that we had actually hit and killed a person who was apparently drunk and laying on the tracks (for whatever reason). Being one of the few who spoke Spanish, I translated the news to the train car, not good news to have to relay to a group of happy vacationers. Needless to say, this changed the mood of the group drastically.
We were determined to still go out and celebrate April’s birthday that night. However, given our fatigue and loss of momentum, it was an early, early night. Probably the earliest birthday night for April in well over a decade as well.
The next day we got up early again to catch the bus down to Puno, on Lake Titicaca. The bus stopped at some ruins along the way (we had already had quite our share of ruins), finally arriving in Puno, where we stayed in a fabulous hotel. We had arranged a tour to the Anapia Islands for the next day, so went to go finalize that. We were disappointed to find out that we would have to get up early again the next morning (ready to go by 7), due to a planned strike in the city to protest high water prices. All we wanted was a to sleep in a little; we had gotten up early (while it was still dark) nearly every day of the trip so far, and it was getting old.
We went out for dinner and some drinks, running into a pair of Swiss German guys that were on our bus earlier, who we ended up ditching to drink on our own. It was again an early night.
Getting out of the city proved to be a little difficult in the morning; the protesters had blocked all the roads leaving out of town with large rocks and broken glass. We took a cab to the edge of town and walked across the roadblock (where we were filmed – maybe we were on Peruvian TV!) to the bus that would take us south toward the border with Bolivia. In the little border town we shopped a little in the local market, rode some bicycle taxis, and got on a minivan to take us to the port.
We took a private boat to the islands; on the island we met our host, Jidio. In order to receive toursits, they had installed normal toilets in the host families’ houses; the standard on the island are little blue outhouses. We were kind of disappointed that they were catering to the tourists in this way; afterall, we came to the island to see how they live. Our guide, Soledad, walked us around the island; as we sat overlooking the city, her son came up. Soledad doesn’t live on the island, but her son does live there with her parents. We told her to go spend time with her family as we navigated ourselves around the island. It was small, afterall.
We managed to get ourselves a little lost, or perhaps off the beaten track, though, like I said, it was small, so we got ourselves back alright. Almost the entire island is farmland, so it was pretty easy to navigate. We headed back to Jidio’s house for dinner and headed off to a town meeting.
The town meeting was held with locals and tourists (even though the islands were listed as ‘non-touristy’, there were a good other 6 tourists there), with the objective for the tourists to give feedback and recommendations on the tour. We all just pretty much said it was a beautiful place and thanked them for having us.
Once again, the next day we got up early – 5:30am to go out with the fishermen. Well, that’s how it was originally proposed to us, but I got the feeling they were a little surprised and/or unprepared when we asked them about it. It was time to harvest the crops, so there weren’t too many people fishing these days. Nevertheless, they took us out. Jidio and Soledad rowed our boat out into the lake. We stopped near the boat of the first fishermen we saw. They were actually fisherwomen, which was a surprise to us. We watched for a short period of time while they pulled a long line with lots of hooks up, collecting their catch. We got the feeling they weren’t too happy to see us. After probably not even 10 minutes we rowed back to the island.
After breakfast we packed up our bags and took some sailboats (the most common form of transport in this area on Lake Titicaca) over to Vicuna Island. No one lives on this island; the people from Anapia island use it for agriculture and livestock, including vicunas, which they sell for their fur. Soledad walked us around, pointing out all sorts of plants they use for traditional medicine. One of them was a berry they use to wean children off of breastfeeding (the children nurse until they’re about 3 years old; the mothers then put the juice from this berry on their nipples, which is red, resembling blood, and tastes bitter). We also saw some wild potatoes growing – did you know there are something like 4000 varieties of potatoes, and 2000 of them can be found in Peru?
We had a picnic lunch on the lakeshore and took a boat back to the mainland, continuing to the Bolivian border. As we were walking toward the immigration office, the Peruvian police stopped us and asked us to come in their office. I went into the little investigation room first; Soledad was still with us, but they wouldn’t let us in.
“Where are you from?” Chicago. “Ah, United States. Why don’t you step inside. You speak Spanish.” Yes. “Do you have marijuana or cocaine?” No. He asked me a number of other questions about my trip and what I did back in the States as his little sidekick went through my bag, although not too thoroughly. Would you like me to stay and translate for my friends, because they don’t speak as much Spanish. “Yes.”
April was next. “What does she do in the States?” She’s a lawyer. “A lawyer in the United States?”, and he quickly told the guy to stop looking through her bag. Hilarious! Shelley came in. “And what does she do?” She’s a pharmacist. I wasn’t sure what the reaction to that would be, but he looked a little more and excused us. I told them I would be coming back over the border in a few days and I hoped I didn’t have to go through this again. They said they would recognize me, no problem.
Soledad gave me a “god job” and said she had never seen a search like that before. Apparently they told her we didn’t look like typical tourists, which I can’t understand at all. Others surmised that it was the end of the month…perhaps the police have quotas in Peru as well? Anyway, we had no more problems crossing the border, said goodbye to Soledad, and continued on to Copacabana.
Tags: Lake Titicaca, Peru, Tag Index
Tania