Magical Mystery Tour to Puno

So sad to be leaving Cusco city and region to continue on to Puno and Lake Titicaca. Historic Cusco is one of the most beautiful cities I have ever seen. There are places to sit and people watch everywhere, it’s tidy, the architecture is grand and so steeped in Inca history that it feels timeless. It also feels completely safe to be out in the evening as a woman alone. It’s strangely comforting to see so many Volkswagen Beetles on the streets. Something about those cars evokes a cozy, friendly feeling.

The mountains in the Cusco region, including the Sacred Valley, create glorious vistas. We were driving through the Sacred Valley one night just before sun set and it was as if the Incan gods were painting the landscape. It was so sublime I felt the urge to cry.  

In the daytime, it’s all sturdy little people in bright local costumes and great hats tending to their animals in the mountains and hand hoeing the flatter agricultural areas with primitive hand tools. This time of year they are planting corn and turning over other plots in advance of the rainy season. The gladioli crops are coming to bloom to be sold to the hotel and restaurant businesses. Throughout little villages people attach poles with red plastic bags at the end by their door to announce they sell fermented chicha, or corn beer.

One entrepreneur attached small metal sleeping pods and a dining pod high up a mountain face and rents them out to people willing to technical rope climb up to them. Apparently they are booked out years in advance. Craziness.

Dog are everywhere. Big gorgeous sheperds and goldens, purebred shar-peis and Chinese crested hairless, plus lots of long low mixed dogs that suggest an extremely promiscuous and non-discerning wiener dog population. Country dogs amble or just lie down out of the sun. City dogs trot along as if they are late for a pressing appointment. A surprising number of city dogs are in clothes. 

Kati designed some fun stops into our full day of bus travel between regions. We passed through towns famous for baking huge loaves of bread for special occasions and stopped for Kati to buy us one to share. There was a town for deep fried pork, one specifically for baked guinea pig, one for roasted chicken. We got out to see a walled Incan control gate on one of the Incan trails. There were renaissance era churches in rural towns completely covered on the inside with murals. We got out to take photos of snow capped peaks. 

In one town we passed there was a huge Sunday market for the mountain people and we went in to see it all. There were people buying and selling everything you can imagine. Sheep, clothes, fresh fruits and vegetables, stoves, led televisions, plastic and steel kitchen supplies, clothing mending, fermented chicha (corn liquor), stationary, snacks, lightbulbs, everything was on sale there. By the side of the road someone was strangling guinea pigs to prep for eating and in the square there was a row of ovens and women stuffing and roasting guinea pigs. The roasted beasties look like something out of a horror film, like flash fried Pompeii victims with their mouths open and their tiny front legs sticking up. It was a guinea pig holocaust.

Our next stop was to see a rare Peruvian animal, the vicuña. The vincuña is a wild precursor to the domesticated alpaca, while the guanaco is the wild precursor to the llama. At this road stop people were licensed to raise two orphaned vicuña and they were in the courtyard along with some llamas and a baby alpaca. G got to give the baby alpaca a bottle and I was able to quickly pet a vicuña. It was ridiculously soft. Textiles made with its fur go for thousands of dollars so it’s unlikely I will be coming home with some.

Lunch time rolled around so we stopped at a fantastic buffet restaurant. Food was varied and included lots of Peruvian specialties, including purple corn or quinoa desserts. Outside were staked a llama and an alpaca. After I finished lunch I went out to see them. The llama was a bit reserved but the alpaca wanted some attention so I petted him. He rubbed his head on me and bent down to sniff my crotch and try to chew my shoe. I pulled his fuzzy little head away and he came over to nuzzle my cheek. He just rubbed his soft little alpaca lips on me and it was a sweet moment until he either spat or sneezed directly in my ear. I pulled chewed grass out of my ear canal and looked at him. He came close and looked me straight in the eye and did the same thing directly in my face. I don’t know if he thought it was funny but T & I sure did. Fortunately, T had a camera trained on us throughout.

Our last big stop that was neither a shopping nor pee stop was to see pink flamingos in a lake. The only other time I have seen live pink flamingos was in Tanzania so these guys were a real treat. 

In the end it took us almost 11 hours to drive from Cusco to Puno but we had some good sights and unusual experiences.