Sillustani, Peru

Sorry, I forgot to post this one.

We did a bus tour out of Puno. I sat next to a young Columbian couple that wanted to practice their English. So we talked the whole day about Columbia and Peru and some about California. They were very well educated. We drove out to a place called Sillustani. The ride out to it was interesting. We watched all the stone farm houses going by and I asked the guide if we could stop and see one so he pulled over and we went inside one. I loved it. This compound was a family compound with four generations living together. They made knitted and woven items to sell and raised all their own food. They were very friendly and offered us dinner. We accepted a small amount of food but we did not want to take all their hard earned food from them. They were poor but very happy and healthy looking. The compound had a garden, an outhouse, a barn for the animals, pigs, chickens, llamas, alpacas, guinea pigs, flowers all around and three living quarters with a stone wall around the whole area. My favorite thing was the guinea pig house. It was a miniature version of the main compound all made out of cut stones with a thatched roof, very cool looking guinea pig house. It was all made by the oldest man living there. All of it was made out of stone work, mostly cut stones that they found around their farm he told us but he had to cut some of them himself when he did not have one to recycle. They fed us a variety of potatoes, red, purple, yellow, white potatoes and some that looked more like carrots or ginger root, some quinoa grain, vegies, pickles, some chicken, breads and cheeses that they made. It was all mostly bland tasting. We talked for a long time and they showed us how they weave and knit. Then we continued on our way.

We arrived at Sillustani and got off the bus again. There was a hike to the site. I was pretty crippled but I made it there. This site is a burial site. The burial chambers were about 40 -45 feet high and about 20 feet in diameter all made from cut stones fit precisely together in a silo shape. The bodies were mummified and place in a fetal position in the center of the chambers. Again the stupid Spaniards destroyed the site and tore down most of the chambers. It was in ruins. The more I traveled around South America the less I liked the Spaniards. I took some pics of the area and then I hiked back to the bus because I was hurting too much.

I made it back to the bus long before it was time to leave so I started to talk to the women selling things in a small market near the bus. A group of them were sitting out in the sun knitting and talking. I started to talk to them and I had fun. They were pretty forward with me and made lots of suggestive comments. I sat down with them and asked them about their knitting. I again showed them that I know how to knit also. They were very shocked to see me knit. We laughed about it. I took some pics with them after they told me all about their lives. They seemed to like to gossip together. Most of them had babies on their backs or were nursing their babies. They told me they started to have kids at about thirteen years of age and have been having them ever since. They were all married but made it clear that they were available. I laughed at their forward comments but again I think they were serious. Finally the rest of the group returned and we climbed on the bus and left to go back to Puno.

I really enjoyed my time talking with the women on the hillside overlooking Lake Titicaca off in the distance. I found the people in Peru to be very open and direct and I like people like that. What you see is what you get. No games just real people. They work hard but seemed to enjoy their life. We should all be so lucky.

Puno, Peru near Lake Titicaca

The Inca Express from Cuzco to Puno took almost ten hours. I enjoyed the ride but it killed me to sit for so long. I was met at the bus depot by another guide and taken to my hotel. I checked in, ate a quick meal and went up to my room to try to recover. I had the next day off to rest. I did everything I could to try to feel better including a long shower and taking some anti-inflammatories along with morphine. Then I took a sleeping pill to knock me out. I made sure I drank a lot of water and coca tea too because at 12,400 feet it is easy to get dehydrated. I wondered how the sleeping pill would react with all the coca tea I was drinking but there did not seem to be any difference to other times I had taken it. I slept well and felt better in the morning.

My guide met me at my hotel right after breakfast and we walked around town for a personal city tour. You guessed it again, we went to the main square and the cathedral. I told my guide I wanted to see more local people and how they live instead of more cathedrals. So she took me to the market place. We walked around and she told me what everything was that I did not already recognize. There were some weird fruits and things that I did not know. She then took me to a little stall where we ate some very tasty tamales and tortas. She wanted to drive me around town but I told her I would rather have the day off to rest. The next morning I was scheduled to go to Lake Titicaca to see the floating islands. She understood and we split up.

I slowly wandered around town in the direction of my hotel. I stopped to watch some of the locals doing things like making up a huge pot of soup. The woman making it was entertained that I was watching her. I started to talk to her and she was very friendly. When she was finished loading up the pot and she let it start to simmer I told her thanks for letting me watch and went on my way. Then I watched an old lady selling some fruit on the street corner. She was trying very hard but was not selling anything. I stopped to talk to her. She was very poor and homeless. She had begged the fruits off a farmer to try to sell to make some money to eat with. I had no idea what it was she was selling but I bought some and then just gave it away later to someone else. It was a bag of greens of some type. I kept walking and found a man cleaning some fish. He was working very slowly but doing a good job filleting the small fish. I asked him where the fish came from and he told me from Lake Titicaca. They were nice sized rainbow trout. I told him that the fish he was cleaning were originally from my home town in California. Rainbow trout were first found in Strawberry Creek in Berkeley California and have been transplanted to almost fifty counties on all continents except Antarctica since then. He looked at me like I was crazy when I told him that. Then we talked about what fish were in the lake. The only problem was he kept using local names for the fish and I had no idea what those names referred to. He only had the trout to show me. I kept walking after we finished talking. I stopped in a little cafe near a busy corner and sat down to drink a beer or two while I watched the world walk by.

I met a woman sitting there and we started to talk. She was twenty five years old and still single, She told me that it was unusual to be single at 25 but she had gone to university and she was almost finished with her school. She was going to school to be a tour guide she told me. The program is seven years long and you must graduate from it to get a permit to be a tour guide. She spoke English well and wanted to practice speaking with me. Sure I will help a nice young woman learn how to speak English. We talked for almost two hours and I told her I had to get back to my hotel to eat dinner and get some rest. I told her she could come with me if she wanted to. To my surprise she took me up on my offer. We walked back to my hotel with her practicing her tour guide skills along the way. We had some dinner and went up to my room. I wanted to take a shower and I told her she could watch tv or something to entertain herself while I took my shower. She sat down and turned on the tube. I jumped into the shower and to my surprise a couple of minutes later she knocked on my shower door and joined me in the shower. We conserved some water by showering together and then hit the sack.

We played around for a while and then she wanted me to roll on top so I did. I started to have some energetic fun and was going at it full bore when all of a sudden I felt like I was choking. I stopped moving and felt like I was going to die right there on top of her. I wasn't sure if I was having a heart attack or something like that. I started glupping huge breaths of the thin air but still felt like I was suffocating. I rolled over on my back and tried to catch my breath. We were at 12,700 feet in elevation and despite all my coca tea I just ran out of steam due to my physical exertion. I gasped for a couple of minutes and then slowly got my wind back. I looked over at my girlfriend and she started to laugh. I had to start laughing too. A few minutes later I was recovered and after laughing about it for a while, we continued at a much slower pace, I had learned my lesson. She told me she knew I was going at it too energetically. She could have warned me or something. It was a fun evening with her. She went home early and I went to bed alone to rest up for the morning trip out to Lake Titicaca. She was a pleasant surprise ending to my day so far.