Friday 12 July 2002
The night was so cold that it was hard to sleep at all. Ane and I had to tuck up closely in one bed with lots of alpaca rugs over us.
The effort I made when going to pee at 4am was memorable. When I opened the door sheep and goats welcomed me. Without much light I passed a 40 cm wide path in the dark. To my right I sensed the dunghill 2.5 meter below and imagined the situation I would be in, in case I felt down. I managed to reach the toilet and do my thing. The way back was fully concentrated and focused until I reached the warm bed again.
At 7.30am we got breakfast, which turned out to be a pleasant surprise. We got bread with salty fried eggs inside and a nice hot cup of tea. This was tasteful. We packed our stuff and were lead by our hostess to the boat and we had to concede that after this, we had acquired ourselves a new smell a la goat.
We sailed approximately an hour until we reached the island “Taquile” in fine weather. The sun was warmed and the sky clear. Our guide told us to go by the steep staircase to the city on top of the island. This would be a 45 minute walk and we would have some 3-4 hours on our own. The boat would sail to the opposite side of the island and pick us up. That turned out to be a somewhat unspecific guidance.
Ane and I walked in a nice and easy tempo, enjoying the fabulous view. On the narrow paths we met kids that worked as shepherds – and knitted hats, sleeves and gloves at the same time as well. Both boys and girls knitted and were shepherds for sheep and goats.
In the small city we got a cup of tea, a bit to eat and after some time we found the only public toilet available. We continued heading against the opposite side of the island and walked steep downwards to the boat. We thought. When we reached the coastline it occurred to us, that something was completely wrong. There was no harbor and no boats in sight. When we asked some of the locals, we realized that we had to climb the steep stairway uphill again.
It took us almost half an hour to reach the city again. The sunlight was really hot and we were broiled, exhausted and angry and suddenly on a hurry, which was exactly what we were trying to avoid from the start. When we reached the city the guide and everybody else from the boat were gone. We felt alone and lost.
Fortunately a tourist gave us a clue and some locals recognized the desperation in our looks and led us some of the way to the boat. Not easy to find without a guide. If we were short of time before, we were really busy now. The staircase downwards was very steep which made it hard to rush. We reached the boat in 20 minutes, sweating, cursing and hungry. We had not eating because of lack of time and now we had to sit at the most uncomfortable seats all the way home. Bad guide!
Luckily it turned out to be nice weather all the way home. We sailed for four ours and some of the other tourists felt pity for us and offered their cookies, candies and soda. Nice people. Back in Puno we got a nice shower that removed the smell of goat, the sweat and dust completely. Even for a true backpacker, it’s nice to be clean.
This would be our last evening in Puno and with that Peru. We visited our restaurant were we saw ourselves as regular customers after being there for the third time now. We said goodbye to Peru by spending almost the double of a normal meal: we ate for almost EUR 27 in total which included six times the “Vino Caliente”, the nice, hot red-wine. Two talented musicians with a great sense of humor came in and played a very nice set of Peruvian music that after half an hour had attracted a lot of guests to the restaurant and made our hostess very happy. Later that evening we went to bed enriched with a Peruvian music CD and the nice feeling of delight when thinking of this lovely people.