Lake Titicaca… sort of
As we bounced along on a crummy 7 hour bus ride to Lake Titicaca, WD started to feel more and more miserable. By the time we arrived in Puno she complained of a raging headache and couldn’t even shoulder her backpack. Looked like I would be wandering Puno alone as well.
I dropped the bags and WD off at the hotel and went out into the night in search of dinner. I found a decent Chinese restaurant and scoffed down a meal alone. I returned to the room expecting to find WD fast asleep. Instead I found her sitting up in bed rocking back and forth on the verge of tears.
“Where were you?! It hurts so bad. I took 3 advil and it’s not helping–maybe you should take me to the hospital.” she said.
Why should I take her to the hospital just so they can dope her up on pain medication when we had it in our roving pharmacy. I whipped up a percocet cocktail and forced her to drink it down. Within a half hour she drifted off to sleep.
We spent the next two days trying to take it easy and wandering the city a bit so WD could adjust to the altitude. Puno sits at over 12,600ft on the shores of Lake Titicaca–the world’s highest navigable lake.
WD showed no signs of adjusting to the altitude (or fully recovering from the bug in the last town?) so I decided to trek out to “Uros” or the famous reed islands alone. We originally intended to take a trip to one of the far islands and spent the night with a local family, but WD would not be able to handle it no matter how many pain pills I pumped into her.
On the boat out to the reed islands I met a couple of fellow Americans from California, Paul and Ben. I wound up chatting with them and we hung around for the afternoon–good guys.
The reed islands have a reputation as being cheesy touristy, but I didn’t think they were that bad. I live in Florida where the art of kitsch has been taken to unknown heights–it’s tough to beat.
We got a little demo of how the reed islands work, in Spanish of course. I had to fend for myself with my translator out of commission on this leg of the journey. Thankfully we had some visual aids:
After the demo and some time to by a chachka or two, we were invited to take a ride on one of the reed boats for $1. I made the big splurge and had some fun getting paddled around the lake.
We were taken to another reed island, I was amazed at the number of them, and given more time to buy things.
The trip totaled about 2-3 hours which was plenty. It would have been nice to see a bit more of the lake after all the travel time involved in getting there, but alas it was not meant to be. I had some lunch and beers with my new friends and went back to check on WD. She was doing a bit better, but absolutely ready to leave town and head for lower terrain. She did make it down the block to see the lake though, and here’s the proof:
Lake Titicaca–check.
