Peru Day 3 - Puno

Day 3 in Peru was pretty much a travel day.  We woke up early to get to the airport for a flight to Juliaca to visit the town of Puno, and arrived at midday.  We took a taxi to Puno, official price S/. 80 but we negotiated down to S/. 75 on principle.  The flight had been quite bumpy and I felt a little ill at the airport.  I tried to sleep it off in the taxi but woke up eventually and had to tell the taxi driver to stop the car, ran out and yakked all over the land, twice.  Zito had a picture of my projectile yak which hopefully I will obtain later and post online.  Very fun.  I also almost fainted since right at that moment altitude sickness hit me.  I was the only one of us that did not take diamox, and as luck would have it I seemed to be hit the hardest.  Eventually I regained my composure and we made it to Puno.

We checked into Hotel Tierra Viva.  The lobby had coca tea which we drank since we were not feeling too well.  Got into my room, and it had a funny smell which was like pee to me, but the boys said it was a different odour, and Dawg said it was cleaning fluid smell which I did not think so at all.  The hotel bed was comfortable, very basic room, and they gave us 2 bottles of water.  The rate of US$70 also includes breakfast.  Very reasonable, I would say.  My one BIG complaint was that as I was showering, the water got colder and colder, like someone was trying to chase me out of the shower, which was most uncomfortable, especially since all I wanted was a nice warm shower to rest my sick body.  The smell I can deal with, but this hot water situation made me feel really terrible.  Also the wifi is slow, which I’m not too surprised about but it is really frustrating.

Puno looked like it had some fun shopping.  We walked around to find alpaca things to buy, and I loved these alpaca rugs that I’m considering purchasing.  We also went to a market where I saw super creepy cow heads (see at your own risk, it is really gross).  Dawg purchased some corn snack which was delicious, and as I ate it I felt more and more sick.  He also got coca leaves and some ash-looking thing whose name I forgot, but apparently if you chew on this thing it will give you a high or help you with altitude sickness.  These are the leaves of the plant that makes cocaine, but I was assured that neither the tea nor this leaf-chewing business would not produce any such evil effects.  Still on the fence on whether I would try the leaves.  Dawg and Zito bought some hats and a sweater from this one lady off the main street and it seemed to be a good buy since it was much cheaper!

We went to Mojsa for dinner, ranked #4 on Tripadvisor in Puno, which overlooked the Plaza de Armas.  The guys had some Mojsa energy drink which was supposed to help with altitude sickness.  For food they ordered quinoa soup, which we were told was a specialty of the area, a quinoa caprese dish and a chicken avocado dish.  They were kind enough to let me sample their food which was delicious, but I chose not to participate in dinner since I was feeling truly horrible, and it was all actually very good.  We will go back tomorrow to try their alpaca steak and other local specialties!  Hope I am well enough by then.  :-/  There was a good view of the Plaza de Armas and the church from the restaurant.  Make a reservation if you want to come here for dinner, they had a "full" sign when we left dinner around 7.30pm and did not seem to be admitting anymore folks.

Here is a bruise update.  Getting darker, but at least the skin is healing.

Peru Day 2 - Lima

First of all, I have to say, getting around Lima is really hard.  Few people speak English.  I wanted to write about this yesterday but was too exhausted to.  It took us about an hour and a half to purchase a SIM card and get it to work.  It is hard to communicate in restaurants, with taxi drivers, shopkeepers, etc.  I suppose that's the run of it.  I Spanish-ize French and English words, and the Dawg says I speak (my very poor) Spanish with a French accent, which I suppose I'm not surprised about.

Anyhow, we started the day with breakfast in our hotel.  Pretty standard, eggs, bacon, sausage, yoghurt, fruit, cereal, etc.  It was not bad, but nothing to celebrate.  I'd prefer a slightly cheaper hotel room to breakfast, and go out and find some authentic Peruvian breakfast or eat at some yummy bakery, personally.

We spend our pre-lunch time doing the Lonely Planet walking tour of the historical old town, which started at Plaza San Martin, with the Gran Hotel Bolivar facing it.  The hotel was faded and a letdown, but I am glad we saw it.

Walked down the street Jiron de la Union, noted we were early and almost no shop except for breakfast places were open, and went into Iglesia de la Merced where we are told the first mass in Lima was held.  They had amazing mahogany alters, so tall, so big, and magnificent.  No pictures though.

Onto Plaza de Armas, the main square of Lima, surrounded by La Catedral de Lima which had the remains of Francisco Pizzaro, a Spainish conqueror of Peru, Palacio Arzobispal with beautiful Moorish-style balconies and Palacio del Gobierno where the president resides.  Really pretty square, and almost all the buildings around it were quite magnificent and looked decently well maintained.  We took a few pictures around the square and also visited La Catedral de Lima (S/. 10).  Here are pictures of the square (pardon the super overexposure) and of a beautiful mosaic wall inside the cathedral.

We visited Mercado Central, which was a wet and dry market, food court-type place, clothing store, basically sold everything, to try to find coca leaves for Dawg.  Honestly was not very impressed.  Then we walked around Chinatown, which did not appear very Chinese (only found one Chinese vendor), which sucked.  I found some pictures of mooncake which made me very homesick, but they looked quite sad.

I did eat a corn which was not bad, decently sweet, from a cart, which cost S/. 2.

We returned to Plaza de Armas to watch the changing of the guard at the Palacio del Gobierno.  There was a band playing, which was fun and I really enjoyed, but the actual procession was just OK.  However, these guys can kick their legs up 90 degrees.  I guess I'm always so impressed because my hamstrings are so tight.  Can you see those 2 guards almost right in front of the main palace gates?

Last stop before lunch was the Monasterio de San Francisco.  What I mainly wanted to see was the Catacombs.  The entrance with tour cost S/. 7.  The tour was seriously horrible.  We got to see part of the grounds which had some pretty tile work and cloisters, but everything was so poorly maintained and little was original and mostly restored.  The guide had very bad English, and I understood about 5% of what she said.  We got "please follow me", "look here at chapel, look nice", "look nice alterpiece", "17th century rococo style", I mean I'm doing a horrible job describing it here but it was really bad/hilarious.  Unfortunately no pictures were allowed inside, but the catacombs which housed the bones was cool and spooky, especially the circular bone grave.  I'd say this would be super cool, and I would have done it in hindsight despite the terrible tour.  Here is a picture of the exterior.

Off we went to lunch at Chez Wong, which I will write about in a separate post here since it is really late and I am tired.  Basically I enjoyed the meal, but the only dish worth going there for was the cerviche.  The more exciting thing about this was that we got into a taxi accident on the way there.  The sad thing about that is our taxi ran into a kerb in the middle of the road.  This yielded a serious mortifying and seriously painful bruise on my shin from the impact against the center console.  I'm very grateful I did not fly out of the taxi though, and after all the anger I felt sorry for the taxi which seemed to be badly damaged according to Dawg and Zito.

We went back to El Pan de la Chola for dessert, and got toast with a seriously delicious rich butter and decent orange marmalade, a very rich brownie and apple cake.  Solid baked goods.

Zito and I walked around Miraflores.  Here are some photos that I think were cool.  The first photo was of some random people doing some tightrope tricks.  This one guy did some flips, and unfortunately on the one where I took a photo did not make the landing.  Still an amazing effort and very cool.

Took a photo from the rooftop of our hotel which was cool.

Last activity for the day was dinner at Astrid y Gaston.  Amazing culinary experience and will be written about in a separate blog and linked here.

Here's a funny sign we saw today.  Total rip off.

Goodnight!