Lake Titicaca

    Once I reached the hydroelectric dam, I was lucky to find a taxi leaving back to Santa Teresa immediately. Never had sitting felt so good. After 9 hours of walking, hiking, and climbing I was completely shot. From Santa Teresa I caught another taxi back to Santa Maria. I forgot to describe this road in my last post- it was frikin nutty! It was a solid hour of hairpin turns, evidence of past rock slides, pits from rain washouts, and near accidents with other cars. The roads are so curvy, that there is no way to see what's on the other side of the hairpin turns and the only way of warning others of your presence is to honk loudly repetitively, hope the other person isn't going to fast, doesn't have their music too loud, and is carefully hugging their side of the road. The roads were pretty baren, but if you were to judge our location on the number of times the driver honked, you'd think we were in downtown NYC. It goes without saying, but that ride was not the most relaxing I've ever had. At one point I heard the sound of what sounded like a roaring waterfall only to look across the canyon and see a major rockslide tumbling down the mountainside directly opposite of where we were. That easily could have been us!
    We eventually made it to Santa Maria, and when I went to get my ticket for the bus ride to Cuzco, i got the disheartening news that the next two buses had been sold out and that i would have to wait another 2 hours for my bus. I was bummed, but I figured it'd be good just to chill for a while. So, I found a pretty ghetto restaurant to hold up in until my bus came, watched some soccer, read a bit, wrote a bit, and waited. I waited for 5 1/2 hours....I don't know what's up with their bussing system but it's pretty disorganized and disfunctional. Instead of having food served on the bus, they stopped on the roadsides and had vendors come on the bus selling "Choclo con queso!" and other items. Instead of having bathrooms on the bus, we had to stop ever so often at roadside bathrooms that we had to pay to use, and if you didn't bring your own TP, you'd be screwed because they only give you about 3 sheets to use.  It's a good thing that I'm a pretty chill traveler, otherwise those bus rides could have been miserable experiences. There are easier and faster ways to get to and from Machu Picchu but they're really expensive and I feel that you wouldn't get nearly the same experience as busing and hiking.
     That day was the longest of my life. After getting up at 3, spending 9 hours hiking, taking multiple taxis, waiting 5 1/2 hours for my bus to Cuzco, and spending 6 hours on the bus to Cuzco, I was ready to find a hostel and crash for the whole day in my bed. That didn't happen. Little did I know that Cuzco is THE place to be in South America for New Years. I spent an hour and a half walking around all of Cuzco looking for a single bed in ANY hostel- cheap or expensive, I didn't care, I just wanted a bed. I had never been so tired in my life, but I had no other option so I decided to keep on moving. Sadly, I never got to know Cuzco very well. My next destination was Puno- the Peruvian town situated right on the edge of Lake Titicaca. The bus ride from Cuzco to Peru through the sacred valley was unbelievable. The marshlands, and plains of the Peruvian farmers and gauchos stretched through the valley as far as the eye could see. The 2 ranges of rolling mountains covered in green grass, wild flowers, and flowing streams continued on perfectly parallel to one another for endless hours, forming this almost eerily, supernatural, Scared Valley. It felt a lot like what I imagine Big Sky Montana being like. For some strange reason, I was the only one on the bus and my only companions were the cows, sheep, horses, and alpacas that raced by my window.
    When I got to Puno, I got dropped off at some random bus stop on the side of the road without a clue as to where i was in relation to the rest of the city, or where my hostel was that I had researched before leaving. With my huge pack, chacos, hiking shorts, tank tee, and adventure hat, I cou;dn't ahve looked more like a gringo. I guess some cops noticed this and came over to help me out. They offered to give me a ride to my hostel and i happily took them up on it. I figured they were just bored and had nothing else to do so they were doing something nice for a tourist. You would think if anybody knew their way around town, it'd be the cops. That wasn't the case. What could have taken 3 minutes, took 25. Upon arriving, I thanked them greatly and began to walk in the door of my hostel, but then one of the cops called me aside. It took me a while to figure out what he wanted, but eventually I figured out that he and his friend wanted money for their help. After figuring this out, i played the role of the dumb gringo and kept him talking for a while. About a minute into this conversation the receptionist of the hostel came out and ushered me in, knowing what the cops were trying to do to me. That was the first time i had ever encountered corrupt cops firsthand. That night we had a mini-pizza party in our hostel- me, 3 canadian medical students, and the owners of the hostel. Later that night i went out to the happenin club in town with the Canadians and danced the night away with australians, new zealanders, irish, arentines, brazilians, peruvians, chileans, and who knows who else. T'was one of the more fun and memorable New Years I'll ever have.
    The next day I went on a tour of the Uros- the floating islands of Lake Tititcaca. They told us the history of the lake, showed us how the islands were formed, we were invited into the homes of the locals, shopped around looking at their trinkets, and then went for a (forced) ride on their boats made of reeds. Little girls danced and sang for us during our ride (and then asked for tips haha). After the Uros tour,  i walked around town a bit, shopped for some alpaca souvenirs, and walked through their crazy markets. That night I feasted on eggs, leftover Chinese food from my canadian friends, and pancakes while watched the Cowboys play the Giants in what was essentially a playoff game. The Cowboys got man-handled.
   The next day I continued my journey in the direction of La Paz, Bolivia.

typical Uros greeting party

reed gondola/boat thing

Sacred Valley