It´s cool, sunny and very high on Lake Titicaca...

Finally, a life quest is completed. I have made it to Lake Titicaca. Well, not quite to the lake. We managed to rise at the ungodly hour of 4:30 a.m. (despite the fact that the hotel clerk failed to give us the wake up call he promised). The crew pulled together amazingly quickly and our pickup arrived on time. We were whisked to the Arequipa airport, and met there by a representative of my Lima agent (we didn´t have to pay for this transfer, because they screwed up on our transfer in Arequipa, at night, in the dark and cold, you remember). We managed to get through the check in with little difficulty (the only difficulty in fact was the LAN agent´s struggle to enter the long, polysyllabic Hawaiian names of the children). The LAN flight was short and sweet. We were met at the airport in Juliaca, and whisked an hour away to Puno, on the shores of Lake Titicaca.

On the ride, our guide, Broz, informed us that we were at 12,000 feet, which I guess I had overlooked. We are all getting a little dizzy and fatigued, but are trying to take it slow. After breakfast, we wandered over to the cathedral, where a series of weddings were taking place. A good mix of western and indigenous outfits, and the Wedding March in Spanish. Because the weddings followed one after the other, a mariachi band celebrating one wedding outside encroached upon the wedding mass going on in the Cathedral, but no one seemed to mind.

Malu was beginning to get feisty so Lady K retreated to the room with him and Kanahe for a nap. Riki and I treked across town to the market place (wild) to buy diapers (pinyas or something like that) and pants for Malu (since his blue jeans keep falling off). The market stretched across several blocks and into a warehouse of stalls, selling everything from diapers and pantalones, of course, to fish, fresh produce (including coca leaves), goat heads, and crap you don´t even know what it is. On the way back, Riki and I hopped into one of these three-wheeled contraptions that motored us around. Along the way, we saw a school field full of soccer players, and realized we will have to return with Malu once he wakes up.

Tomorrow, assuming no altitude sickness, we´re headed to the lake to catch "the people´s boat" to Uros, an island in Lake Titicaca made entirely of reeds. It´s a 3-hour trip. After that, we will no doubt collapse. It will be our last night together, as Riki leaves Monday morning for Lima and then Hawaii, leaving me, Kristina, Malu, and Kanahe to make our way to Machu Picchu. This should be interesting since my escape hatch will be closed (I´ll be sharing a room with the family for the last few days of the trip). Pray for me.

Why aren´t you people commenting? Am I writing for the ether? Peace out.

P.S. Just saw Biden is Obama´s VP pick. Exciting.