Peru: the súper flaite way! (Puno to Arica- Part III)

The next morning, Edgar, Jessica, and I woke up in our hostel after sleeping for about 12 hours apiece, and were eager to go out and explore some more.  We packed up our backpacks, grabbed some breakfast, and walked around a little before we grabbed another sketchy 10/23-person van back through the Sacred Valley.  We were curious, though, as to what the rest of the Sacred Valley was like, so we stopped in every little town on the way, and caught sketchy buses/vans when we wanted to go to the next place.  Peru was celebrating its independence, so there were celebrations everywhere, and it was awesome to see!

Celebrations:

We finally made our way back to Cusco, and after some trouble with the hostel that we were staying at (they made us pay for an extra night, even after we called and canceled, and had our stuff stored in the back... I threw a fit, but I couldn't even think of Spanish fast enough and just ended up yelling at the owner in English), we walked around Cusco for a while longer, said our goodbyes to the lovely markets and food, and embarked on a night bus to Puno.  This bus ride was by far our most flaite experience--not only was I sitting next to 4 live chickens, but there was a cat in the seat in front of me and a girl sleeping in the aisle (when the National Police came on, they had to step over her several times to check for valuable goods).  We also stopped about 25 minutes before Puno in the middle of nowhere and the bus company made us sprint to another bus (without any of our luggage that was under the bus) that would take us to Puno.  When we finally got to Puno, we found a hostel, took warm showers, and passed out for a few hours before we got up early to take a tour of the Titicaca islands.  The islands are on Lake Titicaca, which is on the eastern side of Peru, and is half in Peru and half in Bolivia.  All of us were pretty anti-tour group, so we contracted the cheapest company possible to just take us out to the islands.  It ended up being an amazing day, filled with market food, floating islands (the man-made islands are basically reeds on top of 2 feet of dense dirt, and float on the lake), shopping, and lounging on boats.  It was wonderful!

Entering Uros, the main floating island:

Uros:

What the islands are composed of:

Islands:

The crafts made on Uros.  The people literally told us, "Please buy our crafts.  If you don't, we won't have any money, and our children won't be able to go to school and get educations."

Getting boat rides from one island to the next:

Sooo relaxing!  Especially after a long week of no sleeping, hiking, and Machu Picchu-ing!

Another island of Uros (Quechua is the language that they speak on Uros):

It was absolutely beautiful.  That night we went to an independence day celebration (because it was July 28th that day--the actual day of independence for Peru) with live music and festivities.  However, I wasn't feeling too hot (I had consistently been ordering the cheapest menu items in order to save money.  Not one of my most intelligent moments) and I had to go home early, which I was a little bummed about.

The next day, we got up early (again) and explored Puno more.  There wasn't much to do, but we DID encounter a giant slide!  ...Needless to say, we had quite the exciting day after the slide.

Top of the slide:

That day, we also went to a fertility temple outside of Puno.  We had read that it was a great temple, but it ended up being a little box of rock penises.  How exciting!  Not really though.  What was actually exciting was a llama we met there that played soccer.  Well, it played soccer with us for a while (it kicked the ball back and forth!) until it finally just collapsed over the ball, made a weird screeching noise, and then spat at whoever came close to it.  Hahaha.

Fertility temple:

Llama! Before:

...and after (it wasn't very happy...):

We eventually made our way back to Arequipa, where I got really sick (food poisoning!  ugh!), and then eventually made our way back to Tacna, over the border again, and into Arica.  We spent a day and a night in Arica before taking another 28-hour bus ride down to Santiago again.  It was so nice to be back in Arica!  I hadn't even realized that I had missed Chile, but it was nice to use soap (Peru has NO soap, especially in public bathrooms), eat at a restaurant, and not fear for my life every time I crossed the street (drivers in Peru are insane!).  We went up and visited yet another Jesus statue (because what is a trip to South America without a trip to a religious statue?!?), walked around for a while, ate, and the next day, headed back to Santiago.

Jesus statue in Arica, Chile:

How to tell you are back in Chile: no more sun!  As soon as we were driving over the border from Peru to Chile, the fog started up again.  Arica, Chile:

 It was an amazing trip and I was so happy to be able to experience so much... especially for so little money!  We definitely took a hard route by choosing to bus everywhere, but it ended up working out for the best for all of us.  Yeah, Peru!  Oh, and Chile.  Chile is cool too.