We woke Sunday morning to a wet world. The rain was gone but it was still very cloudy and drizzly. We had an early wake up call, needing to be at the boat at 8am for our departure to the next island. After a simple breakfast of a pancake with some sugar we said good-bye to our host family and were escorted down to the harbor. The combination of clouds and damp made it quite chilly and I had all of my layers on, including my rain gear. Once everyone arrived we waved one last farewell and spent the next hour on the boat motoring over to the next island, Taquille, another small community that exists on tourism and farming.
Our host family on Amantani. I felt very tall! Check out the hat- it is very warm!!!
Taquille island was quite a bit steeper than Amantani and there was a fairly steep 45 minute walk from the drop off point at the harbor to the main square. Because it was raining and dreary there was not much happening at the square but as I looked around I could imagine the stalls and markets that would be present on sunny days. We had lunch scheduled but not for another two hours so we mainly hung around and talked with people and did some casual shopping. The weather was putting a bit of damper on the outing. We learned a little about the culture of the island. It was another small community, less than 5000 people. The island community had some strict rules about clothing as the type of hats the men wore indicated marital status as did the type of skirts that the women wore. Marriage was considered very serious in the community and was not allowed until after a couple had lived together at least three years and produced one or two children. Only after this proof of commitment was a couple allowed to formally marry and the celebration usually lasted four or five days. Divorce was not allowed. It was interesting learning how other people lived.
The view coming down the path after lunch. With the sun out the view turned spectacular.
Eventually it was time to head to the restaurant which involved a twenty minute walk past the square along a stone path. We meandered around houses and small shops on the way to the restaurant. The treat at the restaurant was the trout, fresh from the lake. We had a choice of pan sauted or boiled and I picked pan-sauted and it was incredibly fresh. Luckily while we were eating the sun came out and it actually got quite warm. Layers were shed immediately. To get back to the boat we walked down a different path than that which we had come up. It offered spectacular views of the island and the lake in the sunlight. Once on the boat it was time for the long trip back but it was very pleasant. Storm clouds were once again brewing on the horizon but we remained in the sun almost all of the way back to Puno.
The tour ended back at Puno, around 4pm. We got a ride to the city center where we had to kill about five hours before needing to be at the bus station to catch our ride home on another all night bus ride. Puno, even though the center of tourism for the northern part of the lake, is not geared to tourism in the same way that Cusco is. The city has a bit more of a run-down well-used look to it and even though the city center had markets and restaurants it was not as nice as the old city of Cusco. We found a cafe with wi-fi (several of the girls were determined to connect) and had some desert and drinks and hung out for a couple of hours just relaxing. A few of us got up and wandered around the city to see what could be discovered. At dinner time we decided to go have pasta and pizza and found a quaint second story restaurant with a wood-burning stove. At about 8:30pm we grabbed some taxis and headed to the bus station.
The storm that was building across the lake as we headed back to Puno. I never got tired of watching the weather change. It was always very dramatic!
Now knowing the system it was easy to figure out where to catch our bus. We went out to the loading zone to wait for it but the time for the bus to arrive and also depart, came and went. The bus never showed up. We noticed in the waiting crowd some of the French tourists from our tour of Lake Titicaca. I said hello to them and after a few minutes conversation they said they had heard the bus was running an hour late. At least we knew we had not missed it! So we waited and watched buses come and go out of the busy yard, several with Cusco as a destination but not from the company we had booked with. After about an hour, the time that our bus, even late, should have shown up, the bus yard was empty and there were only about 30 of us standing there. The rumor then propagated that the bus had broken down and a different bus, of a different configuration and class of service, was being sent for us instead. This news sent the majority of the crowd into the station to the bus counter.
We followed since we wanted to verify the rumor. Inside the crowd was mobbed around the helpless ticket sellers. We stood there and watched and heard the most important rumor–the new bus was arriving in ten minutes. Not knowing how many seats, exactly, were going to be available we decided to go out and get in line to get on the bus right away. The mob arrived about five minutes behind us. We managed to get on the bus and get seats and then watched the circus unfold. People were anxious to get on the bus but once on they could not figure out that their assigned seats were not valid (new bus was a different configuration than the old bus) so there was a certain amount of chaos. When it all settled down there were about four people without seats who had to stand or sit in the aisle for the seven hour bus ride.
We finally left Puno about two hours later than originally planned. The seats on our bus reclined, but just a bit. In spite of that I managed to get some sleep. I woke up a few times, once when we passed the scene of an accident, the first I had seen in Peru. Apparently a bus had hit a motorcycle (remember this was about 1 am) and I have a hunch there was a fatality. Another time we were stopped and two official looking people got on the bus and tried to do an inspection but with people sleeping in the aisle they could not make it far. Instead they made the driver open the stowage compartments and spent some time looking in those. At other times there was road construction that we had to slow or stop for. We ended up back in Cusco at 6am and took taxis home. I was in bed by 6:30am trying to get a little bit of sleep before my day started.
The whole trip was great fun but I was happy to be back in “my” bed and to a hot shower!