Encounters at Puno

Puno, town situated by the world's highest altitude navigable lake, Lake Titicaca. The cute name and the humour sounding lake goes well together in my mind. The town doesn't have much, most travellers just come here to visit lake Titicaca.

The four person team, Gloria, David, Allen and I, after settling down at Inca's Rest (apparently the best Puno's got to offer...), we ventured out to the main drag and found the Rocketer bar on Grau street near Lima pedestrian road. This place is a backpackers hang out spot as we were immediately welcomed with "ah there's another one of us" look. The wall is full of visitor's messages, the chairs and walls were decorated with local tapestry, the lights were dim and candles were lit here and there. We took off our shoes to settle at a corner pillow area, surrounded by pillows and cushions and centred around a low table, we quickly got a pitcher of whatever the bartender suggested then started playing Jenga. 

My gosh, this is what Jenga turns to when you got aerodynamic and civil engineers at the table. First is all "let's play it the original way", then it's "Let's twist the stack a little bit!" or "Let's zigzag the stack right and left!" It then escalates to, "What if we use 3 vertical columns on the bottom to hold the rest up?" Then they decided that twisting and 3 column should be combined. Jenga never got so intense with 2 glasses of whatever alcohol the local bar punks put in that jar. 

Preston was another traveller I met at the Inca's Rest, he works for Disney cruises and playlands. He taught English online during travels, worked at the Wild Rover hostel in Arequipa and was on his way to Cusco's Wild Rover (I'll tell you how crazy that place is afterwards) We were the only people awake at 10pm so we drank beer while switching through the Spanish channels to find something we can understand  He was complaining about his dorm mate being sick and haven't gone off bed for two days and I was complaining how damn cold it is 3800m altitude. Puno gets reaaaalllly freaking cold at night, we wrapped ourselves with two layers of blanket and lay on the couches drinking beer. I was so cold that I didn't even bother unwrapping before climbing back to bed to put yet another layer of blanket...

Allen and I found another small place for drinks the last night there. Then we realized the 4 German guys sitting across us were the same group at the pizza restaurant previously. The two group awkwardly said hi to each other, as usually when you meet travellers more than once or twice, it's customary to provide a comrad "Hey". Then, Gangnam style blasted through. The Germans and us simultaneously gave each other looks of "WTF?" Then the bartenders saw then enthusiastically replied "GANGNAM STYLE!!!" WOW. Ladies and gents, we are really not that far off the map yet.

side note: the photos are not edited. the colours are real, including the ridiculous blue sky.

Lazy afternoon drinking tea with Preston and Allen by Plaza de Arms.