Closer to the sky, another life

Bus ride for 7 hours. Breathing became just a little bit more difficult than yesterday. But still no real problem. I will survive for sure. Landed at sunset in the middle of the city. Puno is quite ugly and dirty. I have a weird feeling, it's doesn't really feel like home, not like Cusco. Oh well, let's see what happens.





I woke up in the middle of the mountains, the amazing Andes mountains, at the altitude of 3800 m...sailing on a small boat, to a paradise island. I never imagined that mountain (3800 m) and sailing could go together. It seems lake Titicaca makes it happen everyday.
We first visited the floating islands, made by hand by the local communities (Peruvians-ancestors from the Pre-Inca civilization) who ran on the water long years ago, to protect themselves from the Inca civilization that came to take over the lands. The families on the islands are living an extremely simple life, using their boats everyday to bring supplies from the mainland. They mainly live from tourism fishing and handcrafting.

Moving a little bit further from the mainland, around 2.5 hrs by boat, is the beautiful Taquile island, a natural island serving a community of 2900 people. A community that lives by its own rules, quite different than ours. Besides the fact that they don't pay any taxes or utilities, they have an own government which they elect every year by raising their hand in the main square. They grow their own food, eat tones of fish and rice, use solar electricity for cooking, but still have a few schools and a doctor from the mainland during the week (hopefully nobody gets ill in weekends)  Their main sources are tourism (you pay 3 USD to get on the island) handcraft and the traditional fishing thanks to the lake.

It's funny to call it lake cause this huge pile or water looks like a sea, a sea at 3800 m above...sea level :)))
After one full day in such a place, after visiting such a different kind of lifestyle, it kind of makes you want to go back to your roots, life can be so beautiful without many useless shit we have everyday.

Post written on 26 May 2013 at 15.30 Peru time, 23.30 Romania time.

Head in the clouds

10.000 m up in the sky since 9 hours. After 8 hours of only water and clouds view, the ocean encountering land is a magical scene. Like I woke up especially to see that.
The land is dry, no vegetation, only sand and stones. We passed Venezuela and Colombia and are now heading slowly towards Peru where the vegetation is starting to show up in the high tops. Me? Overwhelmed! Others around me? Snoring like bears. I suppose they don´t care, the pilot doesn´t care, only about the air around his plane, but I care. Who knows what life is down there under me, what amazing beautiful things are happening. I would be so happy to try one, at least one.
Rare conglomerats of white spots appear from time to time in the scene. The cities are quite rare in this corner of the continent it seems. The water is invading the scene again and clouds are back. The sky above us is getting crowded and grey; looks like autumn. Well what do you know, it is autumn in this part of the globe.
Land again, this time all green, different types of green even. I might say it looks familiar now, European somehow. You know, I just realised that every continent has a different view from the clouds, and these views give me unique feelings everytime.

I remember first time I got into a plane, it was my flight to India. When I started flying over the huge dunes of sand I started to panic. I was passing over Iran or Afghanistan and I couldn´t stop my mind from thinking how would it be if we were to end up there for any reason. In the desert, maybe miles away from civilization, in a country that from TV does not seem very friendly or welcoming (not that I would know that for real) I was scared, my hands turned cold and I could not wait to change the view. When the plane started flying over India my muscles relaxed. I could see green fields and houses and that made me feel good again. Till I landed in Delhi that is :)))) The flight to Dubai was less scary, cause I´ve been there before, over the golden sands. But the flight to Brazil was one to remember, cause most of the time we flew over Africa. I was watching the map and hoping that we would need to land anywhere on the way. The scene was all green, thin lines of water appeared from time to time, I was closing my eyes and imagining that I am down there somewhere, in the jungle, with wildlife all around me, with monkeys and tigers and beautiful birds singing. Of course it was a nice dream, cause none of the animals were about to chew me, on the contrary, they were receiving me in their environment.
But getting back to reality, 2 hours and a half till Lima. Let´s sleep it away!

* This article was written on 17th of May at 15.30 Peru time, 23.30 Romania time.