After breakfast we went for a walk to the local market. The market was divided into different sections – fruits, vegetables, chicken, meats and fish. At the meat section there were 2 dogs sitting there looking wishfully at the meat stalls. Meryl decided she had to buy some meat to feed the dogs. When she started feeding one of the dogs near a stall, a very angry stall owner waved her very sharp looking cleaver at us. Probably telling us off for feeding the dogs so near the meat stalls. A local man explained to us that if they are fed near the stalls, the dogs could be mistaken that the meat for sale was freely available to them. So we promptly walked outside the market and gave one of the dogs the rest of the meat.
Then we just took a stroll down towards the jetty. Along the way we saw people going about their daily lives. We stumbled upon a street market and sperate stall holders setting their make-shift stalls. Majority of the stalls were run by Indian ladies. The stalls mainly sold household goods, clothes, school uniforms and shoes. The clothes on sale were targeted for the taste of their local clientele in other words very brightly coloured and glitzy clothes and aprons for broad ladies. There were also very brightly coloured costume jewellery. There were also a few stalls selling traditional medicinal herbs and dried llama foetuses used for offering (we think). I took a photo of some dried herds and got told off by the stall owner.
We saw a very innovative way for hoisting a heavy piece of equipment up to the next level at a construction site. Somehow we do not think that there are any occupational health rules around here.
Romulo came to pick us up at 11::00 am as arranged. The drive to Juliaca took about 45 minutes. Juliaca still looked rather shabby. Romulo also said that Juliaca is a rough city. He told us about how a robber was caught and instead of handing the robber to the police, the robber was simply tied up on a light post and set alight. There was another incident where a large bus accidentally shunted a small van with 7 people in a river. The angry locals simply set the bus alight (minus the driver and passengers). Basically the police and law in the area is corrupt and ineffective.
We had a bit of scare at the airport when we tried to check-in for the flight to Lima. The LAN staff could not find our e-ticket on the system. She asked for our boarding pass from our previous trip. We had to jump across the barrier to try and find the old boarding pass. Alas, they were no where to be seen. The thought of being stuck in Juliaca was just terrifying. Talk about nervous energy and a touch of desperation, with that we pulled out every bit of paper and asked if that was what she needed. We must have been good sometime or rather in the past because after more searching in the system, she found our e-bookings. Hallelujah!
Once we checked in, we needed a cup of coffee. It was one of the most expensive and worst tasting coffee in Peru. It was 7 sol per Styrofoam cup. Even a local who stood behind me exclaimed 'muy caro'. The lady in the stall said that it was because the coffee was with milk. While waiting for our flight, we got talking to an Australian lady. She told us that her husband was suffering from altitude sickness so they had to change their plans and fly back to Lima which is at sea level. She was telling Meryl about their Antartica trip and they had used Chimu Adventures as their travel agent. She was happy with the Antartica cruise. We agreed that the tour staff and guides we had met were all excellent.
At Lima Airport we were met by Angie. The temperature at Lima was quite a lot higher and warmer than in Puno. The traffic was quite heavy (as usual) but it did flow. We were back at Casa Andina again. After putting our bags in our room, we went for a walk in search of more souvenirs and food.
We went to a fast food Chinese stall called the China Wok. Surprisingly the fried rice was rather tasty. Now, it could be we were craving for something different other than fried potatoes. Nonetheless it was totally acceptable. After filling our stomachs we went to look at the inside of the cathedral. It looked like they were dressing it up for a wedding. There were a lot of stray cats being fed outside the cathedral. Children were patting the cats. People here appear to be rather kind to stray animals. Nobody seemed too worried about catching things from the cats.
Meryl was getting really edgy as she had not had a pisco sour. We cruise through the craft market in the park we first met up with a Japanese couple who were desperate to talk Japanese to someone, such as me. They had to content with half English and a few words of Spanish. They were here to spread the Word. A few steps along we ran into two American refugees. One was a retired history teach from Maine. He started to talk about the recent NZ earthquake. He said that Australia would be there to help and asked if we knew the words to a WW1 song about 'Australia will be there' and proceeded to sing the song. Next we started talking to another American from Houston, Texas. He was a retired operations plant manager for some hydro electric company (only guessing). He asked if he had dinner, we said yes but we were going in search of a pisco sour. He insisted on taking us to his favourite haunt for a drink. The pisco sour there was very nice and a very big glass. He was retired and told us that it was much easier to live on his pension here than in the US. He did not like the cold. However he did not appear to speak a lot of spanish. Poor guy was probably desperate for a conversation in English and was prepared to buy us pisco sour just for a chat. Here are some highlights of the chat:
After the drink we went off in search of more souvenirs and in our merry and light-headed state managed to buy a few more things. Perhaps going shopping after pisco sour made things looked more attractive.
Packed up of stuff and set the alarm for 4:00 am all ready for the next morning.
