South America Part 12 – Puno, Juliaca Airport and Lima Airport…

Woke up early (yet bloody) again… Damn South America and its lack of daylight saving and thick curtains. Both went down to the Hotel Basla Wood Inn´s breakfast – this time it was a buffet – consisting of some juice that tasted weird, heaps of coca tea, a couple of bits of stale bread and strawberry jam like substance. We had both stayed clear from the yoghurt which was sitting in a jar (possibly for two hours without refrigeration) – didn´t want to have another day at gastro city.

I need to do a quick rant about Coco leaves. You can get coco at Peru just about everywhere. We have been drinking it pretty much since we got here. Other people have told me that you won´t sleep for hours after drinking it – but I could. Our tour guide from yesterday “Vladdy” – said you need 100kg of Coco leaves to make 1kg of cocaine (but who needs 1kg?!). Anyhows – coco is pretty much entrenched in Peruvian culture – and the government is under pressure (probably from the U.S) to ban it. LP suggests that if you drink a lot of coco tea – that you might test positive for cocaine. So I´m hoping that we won´t get tested for it anytime soon.

We had organised a “personal tour” of Sillustani (a pre-inca and inca ruins nearby Puno) but they weren´t going to pick us up until 10:30am, which meant we had a bit of time to kill in Puno.

We both decided to go up the hill to a nearby lookout (despite LP suggesting that we would get robbed). We made it (including our wallets and bags) and the lookout looked like underage kids get up to no good at nighttime here…

We headed back to the hotel to try to get up-to-date with this blog. I had accidentally “bumped” the powerpoint on the free-internet computer at the Hotel and the computer died. It sort of smelt like burning…and when you try to attempt to replug the cords in – all the safety switches go loco and there are strong bursts of light coming from the outlet in the wall… They had a multiple power adaptor plugged into another adaptor plugged into the single outlet in the wall… Gotta love cheap electrical jobs…

We got picked up (by the taxi driver in a non sexual way) and was taken to Silluatani – which was about half way from Puno to Juliaca. There were hardly any tourists (in fact – tourists here were outnumbered 10 to 1 by noisy Peruvian school kids who liked to climb all over the ruins for kicks). It took us about 1 hour to see the complete sight and it had a spectacular surroundings (by a lake and Death Valley style plateaus). Silluatani was a ceremonial burial ground, first developed by the Colla people – but when they “merged” with the Incas – more obvious Inca like architecture was adapted.

The taxi driver managed to drop us 3 and a half hours early to the Juliaca airport. There was not a soul in sight (even though you were free to roam around the airport). We managed to wake up the restaurant people (siesta time or something?) and grabbed a beer and a “hot dog” – another curious “lost in translation” style dish. It was a couple of frankfurts – grilled and split into half and put on a toasted sesame bun…

Because there were only two flights a day – the gift shop staff were packing up as soon as we were boarding.

Our flight to Lima (via Arequipa – logically) was fairly non eventful…except when all the Arequipa people got on the flight and brought about 10 pieces each of oversized hand luggage. When I wanted to get out my PSP – I had to remove this guy´s big suitcase. He gave me and Ant the death stare when we moved his stuff. Ant and I spent the rest of the flight bitching about him.

So now here we are – sitting around Lima Airport (because I (Nick) was too tired to go into Lima at 7pm at night – and we are running out of soles). It is currently 9:50pm and we still have 3 hours before we board to Buenos Aires.

Until next time…