Puno/Lake Titicaca

I didn’t have high expectations for Puno (~110,000 people, ~13,000 ft, Rubble Alert Level: Beige) based on the piece-of-shit guidebook, but it turned out to be a very nice little town.  It’s a bit off the gringo trail, so life seems to go on a little more as normal.  It’s nice not to have someone trying to sell something to me every 30 seconds.

Below, the (always) lovely Plaza de Armas:

We only had two days here, so we had to stick to the tourist schedule pretty closely, but that really fucked with our pre-existing World Cup schedule.  The tourist bus came to pick us up for our late afternoon cruise to the floating islands just as Uruguay and Ghana went to overtime.  Fortunately, our guide had live TV on his cell phone and we got to watch the triumphant penalty kick on the boat.  For all my bitching, I really do love The Technology.

The floating islands of Lake Titicaca really are amazing to see, but it’s crushingly disappointing to see how much of a theme park ride they have morphed into.  The Sister says to keep in mind that it’s how they make their living, but it still seems a bit gross.  After a brief presentation on how the islands work, we were all invited to “come into a home” (i.e. death march through a sales pitch on why I should buy another llama sweater).  There were several in our group who spent the night on the island with host families.  Pretty sure those poor bastards came home with empty pockets.

At this point, I’m starting to get pretty ill.  The Sister had come down with a pretty crushing cold the day before and, since we had been sharing everything from salads to cigarettes for six weeks, there’s really no escape.  I spent the last half of our Puno adventure in bed.