something-to-remember: The final Days... 11./ 12. and Journey back home

Time to sleep before the day and it's adventures starts... a new guide in town and the last chance to get some sun... it's warm, it's nice and the last time I drink a cup of coca tea. In the morning a demonstration in front of our hotel, which went on to the harbor and there we meet them again.. they want more money for the work they do.... some of them just earn 3 Dollars a day, some who are more lucky get 3 Dollars the hour, but most of them don't know if they will have a job in three days... and no help from the government... Poor people... sad to not know where to get the money you need to buy the food you need.... We see them and passed them to take a ship- one of many little who are waiting in the harbor... we climb over several boats to reach our, which can take 25 till 30 people but this time it's just us and the guide.... taking out to the Uros- Indios... which where once flee from the Incas and landed on the water of the Titicaca lake hidden in the Totora reed. So they build a little town of reed islands.. each island has a family living on it... The once we saw are the 2000 people big community of the Uros... the rest of the 18000 Uro community are living far far away on the big big Titicaca lake... not so easy to reach for the rest... living from fishing and hand made things... Our community gets 2 Dollar from each tourist visiting them and that money is for the school and hospital...
The reed will be used for everything, like building the island, the house, the bed, will be eaten and the bark is used when you have a headache...

not much of a big fish, but that's what they will have to eat...

an example what the island looks like and how it is made

yes, we tried the reed boat too

that's how the island looks alike

view from the water to Puno

Then we drove to peasantry and watched their houses and live stile... poor but how different the living of them are... the Uros are also very poor... but total different...
For example the food of booth is very simple, like rise and fish or potatoes and fish.. like every day... next to all family members sleep in one bed...

the Viagra of the poor man.. a snake in alcohol...

stone walls.. how do they keep standing...I don't know...

At least we took a tour in the afternoon to the half island - on the shore of the Lago Umayo, which is part of the Titicaca lake, to the Sillustani with the antique funeral towers called Chullpas from the time before the Incas... There we saw also sun and moon temples- well kind of.. you just saw something on the ground...

of course the biggest one for the king

nice view and just little water..used to be full of it...

that's what it looks like when you watch on a sun temple too many years after they where in use

the white tower for the dead queen

the sign of animal was maybe the name...

isn't that beautiful?

they were little people once, weren't they? That's the entrance to your place, when you died... well, for your dead body... although they put you inside that tower... not sure if one of us could do...

that's what they looked inside and around...

Gotcha?! Inside shell and outside skin..

a snake.. a family name?

After that we went to a restaurant, had a marvelous meal and watched the celebration of the change of time.. from winter to summer and saw all those traditional dances, which at least last a long time... so many dances... :-)
Back in the hotel, late afternoon it was time to say goodbye... to three of the members, who will have had longer time in Peru then me and an other guy... So we could get another morning to sleep longer, but the rest had to get up early..again...to get to La Paz... Me...I'm happy to go back to Lima... which I learned to appreciate.

So the 12. Day was just waiting to get picked up to drive to the airport, which was late in the afternoon.. means, we went through town and streets, eat a bit and read a bit, watched people and had some sun on our the face.

Puno

they try to keep the children away from drugs... "sin Drogas"

every time I went to the hotel I was wondering where the dog is, which I heard bark..

The when it was already dark we drove back to Juliaca, which was interesting in that way, that we met a big crash and a dog, suddenly lying in front of us on the streets and because there was no traffic light and no lamps next to the streets we nearly had two crashes by ourself and where happy to use our seat belts... driving in Peru can be an adventure self... but the we drove through parts of Juliaca which where quite nice and with streets you can really drive on and it was full of people and tuk tuks and felt bit like being in India, although I never was there and just can imagine it would be like that... small streets, traffic, smog, bikes... noises...
The airport little as always and we already had checked in via Internet, but that was needed.. you cannot check in at the airport, just come and leave your baggage... and wait till you fly....
In Lima...I had next to more then a half day to walk around and so I meet a dear friend I got to know from the way to Machu Picchu and we had a nice day, talkin' and so on...

Back in Lima... Girasoles Hotel..inside at the morning..

on the way to the airport

At the airport, as always everything to eat and drink is much too expensive... I watched out if there is maybe something to by for family... not much to be true...

...so just waiting again and then it was a next to 12 hours flight back to Madrid...

and change there to Berlin...

The only thing I don't get is, why Iberia will that you pay for drinks and food on the flight from Madrid to Berlin... it's not a "cheap" airline like air berlin or so...
Being home was.... nice and unreal... the sky dark already and the first time I did not had to wait for my baggage... do you remember what I wrote in the beginning?.. yes it was always like that.. waiting for your baggage...
Rainy Berlin was greeting me and everything was like I knew it...
Home I went to my plants to see, which did survive and found strawberries, which tasted sweet... lucky me....