The Island... of Amantani.

Departing from Uros, we set out to find the island Charles Widmore style. It was a 3 hour boat ride to get to Amantani. There were awesome people in our tour, and most of the 3 hours was spent talking to them. An uncle and nephew from Idaho, 2 Australians, 2 French couples, a German, and a girl from the US who's working for an NGO in Lima. Topics of conversation ranged from "Money Ball" to the process of learning languages. It was a good boat ride.

The boat docked at the island… of Amantani at about 1:30 pm. From there we were all given a host family for the night. A French couple (might as well have been Rousseau of LOST and Inspector Clouseau from the Pink Panther), Brandon, and I got a family that seemed to live on the top of the island. Lake Titicaca sits at 12,000 feet above sea level. That's about 2 miles closer to the moon than any part of North Dakota. At the family's house in the clouds we were served fantastic soup, potatoes, cheese, and tea. The soup was a potatoey-vegetabley-spice deal that was very filling. Then came potatoes (of a variety that is only grown on this island), cheese, bread, and coca tea. So good.

Our host house.

During lunch, my friend the Tourism General (Benjamin Linus) of Amantani paid a visit. He smiled too much and was super fishy. He told us, in Spanish, that "Your tour guide doesn't want to pay the full 30 soles per person for the host family and rather he's only paying 25." He went on to imply that if the guide only paid the 25, he would need us to pay 30 so the family would get their money for hosting us. That math didn't add up. 30-25=5, so if that story were true, we'd only need to pay an extra 5 soles, not 30. We never had to pay the 30 extra soles so it seems the tourism dude was just trying to squeeze more money out of us. Either way it's not a lot of money, but we had been assured by the tour company that everything was paid for. It's really tiring when it seems everyone is trying to scam you.

After lunch we met back up with the tour group and started a trek up to Pachatata at about 4:30, which is a temple to father earth. It's at the top of the island. Lake Titicaca is the second highest plateau in the world and the Pachatata temple is the highest point on the lake at 13,350 feet. It's hard to explain how tiring it is to walk up-and-up-and-up at that elevation. You're hardly doing any work at all, but you're out of breath the whole time.

The long walk up the mountain.

The walk is incredibly exhausting and it just seemed to keep going and going and going. It was the Energizer Bunny of walks up island mountains.

View of the mountainside.

We arrived at the top just before 6:00. Right as the sun was setting. We didn't get to go in the temple but that was alright. Someone must have captured the smoke monster in there.

Sunset from Pachatata.

Supper was similar to lunch and just as great. We had a tea similar to coca, but mintier. It's called muña. Similar to coca it helps to treat headaches and stomach aches. Afterward we spent a long time checking out the stars and talking to Rousseau and Clouseau. They were very impressed by all the stars, because they can't see them through the light pollution in France. Even though we're in the deep deep south, you can still see the big dipper. The little dipper, however, is just below the horizon.

Host house's kitchen in the morning.

Still on Amantani breakfast was pancakes, YEEHAW, and bread and coffee. Afterward we boarded the boat and headed off towards another island: Tequile (might as well be Hydra island though). All of these islands (minus Uros) are mountains as well as islands. At Tequile we hiked up the mountain and across the island--just like John Locke--for a good hour before we got to the main plaza. On the way we saw people farming and just being normal island people. We also passed the Flame Dharma station.

The Flame Dharma station.

Once we got to the plaza we looked around a bit and then went to a house where we got an explanation of the different weaving that the island is known for. I guess they're famous for their fine weaving, as fine as that tapestry Jacob's always weaving. Afterward we had lunch of trout, great soup, rice, bread, french fries, and tea. I'm getting to be a big tea fan.

After about a million steps down the other side of the island we boarded the boat and headed back to Puno. Thus ended the great trip to Lake Titicaca.

Woman making chiriuchu.

First let's talk about "chiriuchu." It's the main food at the festival that I'm about to talk about. It is chicken, tortillas, rice, other stuff, and whole guinea pigs! Guinea pigs. If you look at the above picture you can see the guinea pigs off to the left. They still have their teeth.

No festival is complete without tons of live music.

The Corpus Christi festival was two Thursdays ago. I don't know what it's a festival of, I just keep hearing that "it's very Catholic."  Anyway it consists of TONS of people, throngs of them, carrying huge statues of saints around the Plaze de Armas. The place was packed. And some of these saint statues were threatening to crush the 20-30 people who were hoisting them around. No procession would be complete with out music and flags, and Corpus Christi is in no short supply of either.

A bunch of people at the Corpus Christi Festival.

During the festivities, one saint caught my eye. This saint rode a horse, how chivalrous. This saint was also crushing an Incan. You have to ask "why?" And I did. What happened was the Incans had the Spanish surrounded, so many 100s of years ago, in the very plaza that the saint statues were being carried around in now. The Incans had a sure victory on their hands until… this saint--Saint Sebastian I think--came storming in on a horse from somewhere and started just destroying Incans: crushing, stomping, slashing. Now this was a saint! And the Spanish ended up winnning this battle and Saint Sebastian was ever remembered as an Incan crusher. Can you imagine! Let's see that pass as politically correct in the US, shall we.

The saint, crushing an Incan.

Look at the baby!

Really I'm having a great time in Peru although these posts don't really reflect that at all. Most days nothing goes wrong and it's pretty sweet being in South America when you wake up. I'll have more positive stories soon... they are written and scheduled.

Kind of a lot has happened to me and Peru is probably not the problem. These things would happen to me no matter where I was. Good luck just haunts me.

But specifically, I've had a case of the get-up-and-goes, the excuse-me-immediatelies, the runs… if you would. But I suggest you don't. So after about 5 days of dealing with symptoms I decided to go into the doctor last Monday. After hours of waiting, I had become the administrator of a schedule of 5 different types of medications. I had pills, syrups, and pills. This was because I was the host of two infections. 1) Giardia… and what a treat. 2) Something else… but nothing special obviously, because I don't remember what it is.

Currently I'm on day 6-ish of taking these myriad pills and things have been looking up, and then down, and then back up again. By this point I can assure you that I'm getting better. Eventually I'll be back to 100%, or I'll be dead. Let's hope for the best.

It was at a mini-bank here that I parted with my card.

Today I got some money out of a machine. It was an ATM! And that's the best part too. Because what happened next was something that I didn't realize for another hour. And that was: Ah $#*!. I left my debit card in the machine.

So I ran back to the grocery store (the ATM's home) and into the mini-bank (the ATM's bedroom). There was a person using the ATM so clearly my card had abdicated it: $#*!. Then I waited in line at the mini-bank to ask the teller if she had seen or recieved a lost debit card. The wait started very patiently. Then, slowly, just as slowly as the teller and her customer were jarring on, I lost and lost my patience. I may have tapped my foot. Finally their slow (lento, in Spanish) exchange ended and I was next. I feigned patience again and asked if she had seen or recieved a debit card, I had lost one.

She told me "those aren't our machines," which did not answer my question. I explained myself a little differently and she assured me that the machines were not the bank's. Having waited a long time to hear this information she closed by telling me "you have to call your bank." Knowing this previously, I left.

Thank you, helpful teller.

Next, things stopped getting interesting as I contacted Tricia and my dad and had them block my card (they were much more helpful than the teller we've been getting to know). I also transferred most of the money out of my checking account just to be safe.

For some reason I was just reminded of Great Expectations. Benefactor anyone?

Sleeping pad from the Clymb

With under a month until I'll be in Peru I've started to finish gathering everything I'll need when I'm there. There isn't a ton that I still need. Most of it is backpacking equipment. I'm hoping to do quite a bit of hiking around so there are just a few more things I need:

• Water filter
• Backpack
• Sleeping bag
• Sleeping pad
• Some way to keep my camera safe and dry on the trail
• Hiking shoes
• Hiking pants and socks
• ...and I'm probably forgetting a few other things

I just got my sleeping pad in the mail--and it's great. It rolls down to almost nothing when compressed but provides real great support when fully inflated. My sleeping bag is purchased (thanks again to the Clymb) and should be arriving soon. On my to-do list this weekend is taking my Northface pack back to Scheels because it didn't fit right. Then I'll need to buy a new one.