After 4 long days we have finally arrived at our destination at ciudad del lago, Puno. Except for lack of sleep, our travels have been better than we expected. We had no problems at 'George Bush Airport' at Houston, even though we only had 2 hours, and the line for immigration (or whatever it's called) was endless because everyone has to provide fingerprints and so on to the U.S., and the immigrations officer told us we would be stopped by all the security officers we met if we went the shortest way to our airplane gate (which was already boarding at that moment). However, we chose the shortest way and were not stopped by a single officer, and made it in time for our flight. The airplane food on United Airlines was surprisingly tasty (and vegan): chickpeas and curry rice. For me food is what adds to travelling extra adventure and 'hygge', so you might hear more about that part of our travels in the next months.
When we came to Lima at midnight two days ago, we called Andrés friend to let him know we had arrived, but found out they had misunderstood each other and the friend was in the jungle far away from Lima, unable to pick us up. So we prepared to stay the night at the airport, but Andrés' friend made arrangements for us to stay at his sister's place in Lima. So luckily we had a comfortable place to sleep - he and his sister were both very helpful to us! And that night's sleep was very much needed because the next two nights we slept in busses, while we drove along the coast of Peru to Arequipa, and then on to Puno. It was awesome to drive through the desert landscapes of southern Peru bordering the Pacific Ocean, with occasional rice fields growing along rivers that flow into the ocean. Arequipa is a nice place to go as a tourist with a lot of old buildings and beautiful views to the three volcanoes surrounding the city. We went to the 'mummy' museum in Arequipa, which had a frozen 500-year-old mummified body of a girl found buried on top of a 6000m high volcano close to Arequipa. Another body of a teenage girl, called Juanita, also found at that volcano, was unfortunately out on a research trip. But she is the most well-preserved of several Inca offerings found at that volcano, almost completely preserved by the ice. They were offerings to the Inca gods at the volcano, who were chosen as infants to be educated at Cuzco, and the most intelligent and beautiful of them were chosen to engange on a long journey along the Andes to this volcano to be sent to be among the gods. A horrible fate for these young people, but at least it seems like they didn't suffer much physical pain, being intoxicated for most of the journey, and probably filled with notions of pride, having the prospect of becoming a god. At least all this is what the museum guide told us.
Today we arrived in Puno at 5am and met an already awakened city, and were already able to get our hostel room because 'ofcourse' the hostel hosts were up - it was already 5:30am! We had tried finding couchsurfers here, but out of the 40 I wrote to we got about 3 answers, one of them saying he already had 15 friends visiting at this time of the Fiesta de la Candelaria and that we would be lucky if we even could find a hostel, since Puno has been recognized as a UNESCO world heritage sight.
So here at 3830m height I am sitting on the roof of the hostel in a hammock, eating watermelon I bought on my morning walk, while Andrés is at the agricultural conference he has to attend these few days. I hope he's not suffering from altitude-sickness as much as my headache is reminding me that we are at the highest lake in the world (navigable lake, that is). Maybe I should drink some more coca tea...
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