Day 97 - Puno
I had to sympathise with the rodent as it stared up at me with a fixed grin. Back home it would have had a cosseted lifestyle. It would have been fed and shown affection and kept safe. And when it's time was up it would have been placed with care into a shoebox and lowered gently into a hole at the bottom of the garden as its (human) family looked on in a reverent silence.
This guinea pig's life hadn't quite panned out like that. Here in Peru it was splayed across my plate, its bedding was fried potatoes rather than sawdust. But I must say that my sympathies receded as I savoured the pleasant, slightly gamey flavour and, with a little effort, the bones were soon picked clean. People have a passionate irrationality when it comes to eating something that could be a pet, witness the western horror for making dogs a dinner. Guinea pigs on plates don't elicit quite the same reaction as that I suppose but what I was doing could still move an 8 year old to tears. I'd say adults see them as more ridiculous creatures than dogs (guinea pigs not 8 year olds, although...) so the sympathies are lessened. Given their timorousness it feels like even if
I wasn't eating this guinea pig something else would be, like a fox or an eagle or a wasp. And at the end of the day, as I often say, if it was good enough for Jesus then it's good enough for me.
The pet-eating was being done in a restaurant in Puno which is a city that sits on the shores of Lake Titicaca. You've likely heard of Lake Titicaca due to it's status as the world's largest high altitude body of water. It's one of those select facts that seems to be told to all children, like the visibility of the great wall of China from space or carrots helping you see in the dark, as if it will stand them in good stead later in life. Well, I say facts but actually the wall
isn't visible from space and in the darkness isn't visible from anywhere. So perhaps that is why Michael had continually and vigorously disputed the lake's claim to fame every time it came up in conversation. He hadn't got this aerated about a claim since Obama said he was black. Day 100 of the trip had arrived and time had seemingly ground to a halt in this rainy town. We'd visited 12 countries at this point and travelled thousands of miles over-land. Perhaps it was the inertia of Puno or maybe it was this distance that got me thinking what the purpose of it all had been thus far. To see that amount of places in such a short time made it all seem unavoidably cursory. We'd only dwelt on Utila and I'd found that island hard to leave probably because we'd ingratiated ourselves, carved out a little existence. Other than that I was left with the feeling we were travelling without a destination. It sounds great in theory, I'm sure the idea thrilled me before we started, but it can leave you feeling unsure of what you are searching for. This trip will end at some point and I shall want to know if it was worth it. Our hotel room lacked amenities like natural light and combined with the thin, lethargic air was starting to resemble a coffin after three days of near-constant habitation.
Mike had taken to bed, only breaking his perpetual siesta for regular bouts of explosive defecating. It later transpired that this was caused by the fact that he had eaten some pets too, though the idea of intestinal parasites as pets is a somewhat controversial one. I and, after some cajoling, Mike decided to break the sit-in by booking a visit to the ruins of Sillustani. It is known for its pre and post-Inca funerary towers which cluster on a hill overlooking miles of empty landscape patrolled by the occasional alpaca. Our guide was a knowledgeable indigenous chap called Cesar who informed the group of the tower's history by way of an impressively comprehensive infographic scratched into the soil. On the bus journey back to Puno we stopped at the home of a local family and were offered the chance to purchase their wares and pet their llamas, all for a few coins of course. I stayed on the bus while my fellow passengers enjoyed the human zoo.
Like Herodotus's dog-headed men, tales of people living on islands made of reeds must have astounded reason before mass tourism found them. As we sat on the boat awaiting departure to these unique islands my fears were piqued by a fellow who climbed aboard and began knocking out a Beatles song on panpipe, help. Once upon a time the Uros Islands in Lake Titicaca would have been places of myth and hearsay, now they are another stop on the traveller's trail, a well rehearsed pantomime of ethnicity, a bazaar of colourful mass-fabricated goods.
The Uru people constructed them from totora reeds that grew locally to get away from the encroaching Inca and pushed them far out into Lake Titicaca for safety. They also ate the roots of the reeds because of course they did. We drifted past islands replete with public telephones, satellite dishes and one that appeared to function as a petrol station. We did this drifting in a craft dubbed the 'Mercedes-Benz' of the islander's vessels, a ludicrously unwieldy construction of reeds fronted by two grimacing dragon heads. We stopped at one of the islands and were offered the chance to purchases their wares and pet their...oh, no llamas here.
Some of the tourists were already ahead of the game with their Peruvian cosplay though. These floating islands sounded magical in the pages of lonely planet but there was an empty commercialism keeping them afloat. Was I being too cynical? It's possible but I kept asking myself why are these people here? Has no-one told them that the tribes that persecuted and drove them to this aquatic isolation are long gone? They don't seem to be here to live the lifestyle of their ancestors, tourism and the modern world have tainted that. No, they are here to carve an existence by the best means they can and if that is by bluffing an empty hand then who can begrudge them. Why was I here? A harder question.
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