A Relaxing Day in Puno

After a week of hectic travelling schedule, we decided to just chill for the day in Puno. Puno has an altitude of 3,860m afterall. So we got out of bed at 9:30am, the latest we had done for the past week, and I got up with my headache still lingering. I guess when you're at 3,860m, even the slightest discomforts in your body don't go away easily.

We missed our breakfast for waking up too late. So we went down the street to find food. In order not to worse my headache, I chose not to wear contacts. What happened was my eyes immediately began to tear up non-stop. That's how strong the UV was in Puno. I had to wear my sunglasses without my contacts to stop the tears from coming down. I tried to drink more water whenever I remembered to help get rid of the headache. We grabbed something quick for breakfast, something like empanada. It was pretty tasty and cheap.

We went to the tour agencies to see if they had anything open for the afternoon. But all the tours to Lake Titicaca would start in the morning. So we just walked slowly around town to experience Puno. I liked Puno. It had the relaxing atmosphere. We also heard noticeably more English-speaking tourists, along with locals with much higher English proficiency.

There wasn't much to do around town because everything was closed due to Semana Santa. All the museums we wanted to visit were closed. We just wandered off to the local market, bought some tunas (the cactus fruit) to replenish our fluids, and shared a menu for only 2.5 sols. We noticed that unknown people would sit down at the bench, mumble something to the rest of the table before they started eating, and the other people would respond with some word. And before they left the table, they'd again mumble something and the other people responded. We later found out that people would say "buen provecho"and respond with "gracias" before you start a meal, and "provecho" and "gracias" when you leave the table.

(It's taking me forever to do my trip writeup. I think I'll just revert to my point form. This very piece of writing has already taken over two weeks. I do want a written record of my travels for my own interest.)

- We bought some grapes, avocados, and nother fruits from the market and went back to the hostel. I was feeling more sick and tired and my headache got more severe. My stomach was feeling funny so I wanted a bit of a rest. I drank my first dose of coca tea. It didn't taste very delicious but it was okay. I wasn't sure how much I had to drink before it would help me ease my headache.

- We left the hostel again after less than an hour to attend a church service at 6pm in the Plaza de Armas. Somehow there wasn't one. Perhaps we read the sign wrong earlier. I sat down on a bench to rest because I was feeling chilly and sick with a headache. Fortunately I brought some coca tea with me in my Nalgene bottle so I kept sipping from it to keep myself warm.

- While we walked around we ran into another church that was starting a service. We went inside and watched for a bit. They hymns that they sang were more lively and modern than what you hear in the Hong Kong or European Catholic churches.

- We had a chifa menu for dinner at 媽祖飯店! The chef there was Chinese, and the waitresses were Peruvian. We had a chaufa con pollo (chicken fried rice) and a sopa (soup) with noodles and a dumpling. The chaufa was a big dish of fried rice with chicken and soy sauce. It wasn't bad. But both of us couldn't even finish one order. I didn't want to eat too much or too greasy because of the altitude.

- We walked back along the busy tourist street and the shops and restaurants were open again. There were some nice souvenir shops and I was tempted to buy something. But all the stuff was either too expensive or impractical so I didn't get anything, although I did buy an alpaca sweater in the morning in Plaza de Armas as a gift.

- We went to an internet shop next door to the hostel to mainly download my pictures to my USB flash. When I had to bend to plug in my USB, I felt like my head was about to explode. I was too sick to blog so I just updated facebook a bit and meebo'd a bit. But the connection kept disconnecting and the computer rebooting.

- I went right to sleep after I got back to our room. I just fell in bed and passed out. I've had the same clothes on and been without a shower since I left Arequipa! I think I was having a shower every other day on average so far into the trip. =)