If my coworker with the poorly-timed plague or the several hours of being on bumpy planes weren’t going to make me sick on vacation, I can always fall back on getting sick from funny medication side effects. Historically, I have a fantastic knack for getting the side effects of travel drugs and immunizations which are explicitly labeled “Call doctor immediately if you experience these symptoms.”
This is the tale of our travels to Puno and the delightful things we have encountered in the last 24 hours.
To Lima…and turbulence!
We had a bulkhead exit seat for the flight from Atlanta to Lima, which was had one of the crew member seats facing back towards us. One of the flight attendants took her seat there just before take-off and we awkwardly faced each other for the bumpy ascension.
After an elaborate game of you’re-right-in-front-of-me-but-I-just-want-to-space-out-and-not-creepily-stare-at-you, we had no choice but to become best friends, especially after she noticed I had zipped up my sweatshirt and pulled the hood up and brought us extra blankets.
The theme of the six hour flight was….turbulence! My favorite. Unlike my trans-Pacific flights where I’m trying my best (and predictably failing) to sleep through any travel-related misery, this flight was during normal waking hours and I was left to fidget and try to watch some movies while ignoring my irrational fear of the plane falling out of the sky.
The flight was just over six hours, and towards the end, some of the passengers did not comprehend the idea of “We are landing now, stay in your seats.” Approximately five minutes before we touched down, the flight attendants had to give people a curt warning to sit down.
Lima international airport is fairly small but busy. There aren’t many gates or baggage claims…but there were a ton of cab drivers.
We ignored their calls since we were headed just across the street. One man seemed very concerned that we were paying so much to stay at the hotel right across the street. Didn’t we know there were cheaper options?! He could help us! No thanks, bub, but nice try.
One of the joys of traveling in less-developed places is mastering whatever crazy mechanism provides you with hot water for your shower in each hotel. Our Costa Rican hotels ran the gamut from lots of knobs (all helpfully labeled with a c) to one of the scary electric hot water heaters directly attached to the showerhead. They only sort of provided you with warm-ish water and usually smelled like burning.
The airport Wyndham had a normal-looking lever, and it was even helpfully labeled caliente and frio. This shower was looking easy…too easy.
Turning the knob to caliente was very caliente. Turning the knob to frio was ALSO very caliente. So caliente I couldn’t even stand in it without doing a painful dance. After experimenting for about five minutes, I discovered that if you half-pulled the handle and put it in between the C and the F, it would put out tolerably warm water at half water pressure.
I win! Take that, shower!
Flying through the Andes
After a quick breakfast, we casually strolled across the street and checked in for our LAN flight to Juliaca.
We browsed the airport shops (a starbucks! subway! mcdonalds! Where are we?) and I didn’t even have to take my laptop out of my bag when it went through the airport scanners. Ah, the joys of flying in not the United States.
One of Peru’s staple soft drinks is Inca Kola. It was purchased by Coca Cola some time ago (a point of contention) with the intent of wider distribution. While I’m too lazy to google whether or not it’s in other places in south america, I will tell you what it tasted like.
Imagine you are drinking cream soda. Mix in some bubble gum flavor and there you have it – Inca Kola. Highly fizzy, and semi-confusingly a bright yellow color. Peruvian national beverage…next to Coca tea. 😉
We made our way to the gate and had to bus out to our plane. I was of course mentally running down my list of the natural enemies of planes and hoping for a smooth flight:
- Extreme turbulence
- Mountains
- Clouds
- Mother nature
- Birds
- Gravity
Once we got up above the constant winter fog and cloud cover of Lima, it was surprisingly clear and smooth. The sky was an impossible blue, clouds were fluffy white, and the Andes sprawled beneath us.
The flight was actually scenic. High, wrinkled peaks and plateaus were directly beneath us, and rocky snow-covered peaks began to appear as we got farther into the Andes. The sharp peaks sparred for dominance with fluffy white clouds, with the clouds generally coming out ahead.
The landing in Juliaca was a bit rough, but we had a nice view of Lake Titicaca on the way in. The airport consisted of one single runway, two baggage claims, and one gate. We walked from the plane to the baggage claim and then met the driver I had arranged through the hotel.
We bumped through the roads of Juliaca. It was a dusty town, but relatively clean. Once we were out of Juliaca, we drove through golden hills and switchbacks reminiscent of western California. The scenery was dotted with small walls made of stone. Sheep and cattle had relatively free range of the plains.
Finally, we arrived in Puno!
Pu-no we di-int (say it out loud, I promise it’s clever)
Since we ascended from sea level straight to 12,000 feet like the book said to explicitly avoid, we were taking diamox and decided to take it easy in and near the hotel.
Our hotel overlooks a park close to Plaza de Armas and the Cathedral, and there are a ton of great restaurants and shops nearby.
For lunch, we went to one of Puno’s best fusion cuisine cafes. It had a nice, brightly-colored courtyard towered over by a cactus smack in the middle and the cathedral directly behind it. It served alpaca steaks and … pasta!
I ordered Coca tea because it’s supposed to help stave off altitude sickness (and cure just about anything if you are talking to the right person). It came in an attractive little pot with a tea light beneath it.
Sometime during dinner, my hands and face started feeling a bit tingly. I wasn’t sure if it was the diamox or some symptom of being at a high altitude.
It persisted after several hours and after extensive googling the tingly feeling, it was a side effect of the diamox with a warning of “call doctor immediately if you are experiencing this symptom.” Oh, great! This is going to be like when I was on mefloquine to prevent malaria and got literally all of the feelings.
Let me just get right on skype and….have my calls dropped several times because the wifi is super crappy. I had to go the expensive “make roaming phone call” option to get ahold of my doctor since I would rather not die or have to go to a hospital where my primary form of communication is broken spanish supported by google translate.
Fortunately, after a pricey game of phone ping-pong, they told me it should go away and to go to the hospital if my throat swells or I experience shortness of breath (and to most importantly, stop taking diamox). I was advised to drink a ton of water so I could pee this bad boy out of my system, which was exactly what I did.
Several hours later (and after mastering the shower, which had several knobs a la our shower in San Jose), the tingles have mostly disappeared.
Back to enjoying Dragon Ball Z and Horas de Aventuras in Spanish on Cartoon Network.
Tomorrow, we’ll explore central Puno as we acclimatize to being at 12,000 feet. The goal is no more medical scares or tingly feelings! No more diamox for me. Ever.