Pictures – Week 22
Sunday, August 1st, 2010Lots of good pictures this time: Machu Picchu, Lake Titicaca and Arequipa. Enjoy!
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Southern Peruvian Sites
Sunday, August 1st, 2010Southern Peru continues to intrigue us. We stay for a couple of days at a fun town, Puno, on Lake Titicaca, the highest navigatable lake in the world. We visit the floating islands of Uros. The islands, as well as the houses and boats, are made from the reeds growing in the lake. Walking on the islands is disconcerting – very smushy and at one point, we feel like our feet will break through to the water. The locals are colorfully dressed in hand-embroidered jackets and skirts. The women wear bowler hats and braid their long hair, attaching large pompons to the end of their braids. I enjoy watching the pompoms bobbing around and almost buy myself a set, but figure that realistically, I will never braid my hair and wear pompoms…
The floating islands are very touristy and we figure that the locals make quite a lot of money by selling their handicrafts, food and rides on elaborate straw boats (referred to as Mercedes Benz). However the locals do a good job at explaining the history and life style, which seems to override the tourist element. We visit the island homes – a simple one room straw building with two mattresses on the floor for four people. Their kitchen is outside; we never figure out where the bathroom is. One house has solar panels and batteries to power a small TV and stereo “for the kids”.
The town of Puno is touristy – the tourism industry is well established and strong in Southern Peru. Yet the town has a nice balance of international and Peruvian tourists, and locals in both traditional dress and modern clothes. We stray from “gringo alley” to the local market. The girls giggle when they see Quinn and the ladies say, “Que lindo!” We see many variations of potatoes – some that don’t even look like potatoes. Quinn is eager to go on the swan boats on a pond near the lake, and he happily steers around the pond while I paddle. We see lots of interesting birds, even ducks with blue bills. No gringos on the swan boats except for us…
After Lake Titicaca, we drive across the arid highlands to Arequipa. At 14,000 feet, we pass herds of llamas and vicunas, relatives of llamas and alpacas. Arequipa is a large city (1 million +) and surprisingly cosmopolitan. The city dates back to the 1500s and is filled with majestic, Spanish style buildings, as well as upscale shops, hotels and restaurants. We visit the Monasterio de Santa Catalina, a convent from the 1500s that was closed to the public until 1970. The convent is a city within a city – a maze of pedestrian alleys, houses, gardens and religious buildings, all brightly painted. The nuns had rather luxurious accommodations for the time: private sitting room, kitchen, bathroom and terrace. Most nuns even had servants. Seems like quite a nice lifestyle.
Patrick leaves tomorrow after 3 ½ wonderful weeks of travelling with us. Fortunately, he got to see some of the most amazing sites of the entire trip (Galapagos Islands, Machu Picchu and the floating islands on Lake Titicaca), but also the most unscenic part (Northern Peruvian desert). We will all miss him very much.
hwy1alltheway