Back to blogging. Now, where was I? Oh yes, Puno, on the shores of Lake Titicaca. We left for the islands early in the morning (well, we left for the boat early in the morning…due to boatish delays I didn’t entirely understand we didn’t actually get out on the lake till 10 am, but in the meantime I beat Tim at chess ;) ) and spent the day on the Floating Islands of Los Uros, a truly amazing sight that seemed straight out of a fantasy book. These islands are made of buoyant reeds lashed together to create decent-sized floating islands that shine gold in the sunlight of the highest lake in the world. Each family has 10 square meters of reeds that they tie together to make a community, and, as our guide joked, “if you don’t like your neighbor, you just untie his island in the night and ‘chao!’” The people began constructing these islands when the invading Incas made it too dangerous to live on shore, so they were able to maintain their culture despite the invading Incas and the Spaniards. Now they have yielded to the invading tourists, but in a really cheering form of cultural tourism, showing their lives and letting people experience a day and a night on the island with them, which is what we did.
After Titicaca we returned to the desert coast and the beautiful city of Arequipa, where I had spent Christmas. We visited the Santa Catalina Monastery, justly renowned for its amazing architecture and vibrant primary colors. (see facebook) My favorites were the blue arched courtyards with red flowers placed to make the color that much more striking. Apparently in its heyday the nunnery was quite the place – rich women from Spain would come here with up to 4 slaves and countless luxuries (even discrete baby disposal services – not much of a cloister!) until the archbishop got wind of it and imposed stricter rules. Oh well.
We made our way up the coast to Nazca, famous for a group of designs in the desert only visible from the air. They’re amazing, a monkey, a spider, a tree with intricate roots, a guy waving with huge eyes… The Nazca people made them thousands of years ago and it’s a mystery why – messages to the gods? Communications with aliens? Sacred paths to walk praying for rain? – but to me the greater mystery is how they lasted so long unknown and unblemished. If no one knew about them until the 1920s, why didn’t anyone build a house on them, or a road? In fact, one design is partially broken by a highway, but out of almost 500, that’s pretty darn good. Tim and I flew over the lines in a tiny 5-seater biplane that tilted and turned to see each design clearly which was great…except it turned my stomach quite thoroughly as well. Oh well, I guess there’s a price to pay for seeing what was meant only for the gods.
From Nazca we bussed north to Ica, an oasis in the sandy desert, and Tim felt right at home in the tall dunes – just like Egypt, where he spent the past semester. We went sandboarding on the dunes, or rather, sandsledding for those of us who weren’t experienced snowboarders (oh, wait – that was all of us, I think Tim and I were the only ones in the group who’d ever seen snow and we don’t board) but it was really fun, especially since the dune buggy came to pick us up at the bottom of each hill and drive us to the top again :D The buggy then took us on the wildest ride I’ve ever experienced – it was as close to a roller coaster as you can get while still on the ground, and those of you who know how much I hate roller coasters will be surprised at how much I enjoyed it.
In Ica we also took an entertaining tour of the vineyards with a Swiss-Australian couple and a hilarious taxi driver guide who blasted 80’s rock in the car between vineyards. Tim tried a lot of wine and by the last stop the group was downing shot glass after shot glass of wine from huge clay pots and learning drinking cheers like, “Arriba! Abajo! Al centro! Adentro!” (up, down, to the center, inside!) or, even better, the Swiss cheer which went, “To the nipple, to the balls, to the middle, to the stomach”. Tim wasn’t staggering that much when we got back into the taxi…
We wanted to go to Paracas to see the famous Islas Ballestas, home of everything from sea lions to flamingos to penguins, but apparently the ocean was acting up and the waves were too high and stormy for anyone to visit the islands, so we skipped that and went straight to Lima, where we finally went to the center of the city and saw the Plaza de Armas and the yellow cathedral and the catacombs of San Francisco (awesome. Rooms full of skulls and passageways lined with femur bones…creeeepy!).
And the next day we were gone! Off into the air, back to America for a month-long winter vacation at home before returning to South America and my study abroad in Buenos Ayres.
