Beautiful Puno, Peru

No, my dear Puneites, I do NOT mean Pune. There are more interesting and more beautiful cities than Pune on this earth.

Yes, you guessed right. I am not a Punekar. I am a Mumbaikar but aspiring to become a Punekar when the real estate prices stabilize in Pune.

Traffic island in Puno

Actually, I would have loved to become a Punokar. Situated on the shore of Lake Titicaca, Puno has a wonderful backdrop of the beautiful, huge lake. However, two things are against my becoming a Punokar. Firstly, I am not a Peruvian citizen and secondly, Puno is at a height of 3860 meters which translates into about 50,000 feet and consequently the air is so starved of oxygen that just getting out of bed and walking to the bathroom tires you out. I do not want to feel like somebody has put me through a wringer and drained me of all my vitality, ALL THE TIME. (Now that I am in Mumbai and at sea-level, I KNOW that 3860 meters does not translate into 50,000 feet, but at Puno it looked like that.)

Lake Titicaca is the worlds highest navigable lake. You will get more information about it here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Titicaca

We had booked a tour of Uros and Taquile islands.

One of the Uros Islands

Uros islands particularly fascinated me because we had visited Oslo sometime back and seen the Kon-Tiki museum with the balsa wood raft Kon Tiki, papyrus boat Ra and reed boat Ra II which were used by the famous explorer Thor Heyerdahl in his expeditions. The boat Ra II was made by Bolivian boatmen from Lake Titicaca, but Uros islanders claim that it was made by them. They also pretend that they are following a very primitive lifestyle but we DID see satellite dishes on their islands, which makes me suspect that they do enjoy all modern amenities like electricity, Internet on their islands and travel between the islands by powerboat. However, they ferry tourists in the selfsame reed boats.

Model of a reed island and house

The tourists also pretend to believe in the primitiveness of the islanders.

Uros and Titicaca in a different mood

The Uros islands are unique. They are floating islands totally made of reeds and when you step on them, you have a feeling of walking on the water. The reeds get pressed under your foot just a little bit and spring back again when you lift your foot. It is somewhat akin to walking on the trampoline.

Uros and Titicaca in a dark mood

The Taquile and Amantani islands are solid earth. The tourists are required to climb more than 500 steps on TaquileIsland.

Taquille Island and Lake Titicaca

Given my condition of breathlessness, I opted out, though Avi made the trek. I remained in the boat and dozed.

Arduous path up the island

I have developed an anathema towards this word Taquile because it sounds like Tequila. My experience of the later made me wary of the former too.

For a long time I had wanted to get drunk just because I was curious. I am NOT a drunkard, I am not even a drinker, but at least once in my lifetime I wanted to know how it feels to float, to be free of your senses, to be in the twilight zone between consciousness and unconscious. All the reading about madhoshi, nasha had made me determined to experiment, but I wanted to do it in a safe environment.

However, I have had no chance because Avi is a teetotaler.

But now I had my chance. My elder son-in-law is a connoisseur of alcohol. (Since I cannot distinguish between a whiskey and a root beer, I am using alcohol as a generic name for all wines.) Bambi, my daughter, was married for eight years now and my initial shyness with my son-in-law had worn off. So I told him that I wanted to get drunk.

I have a sneaking suspicion that he finds his unconventional mother-in-law rather amusing. He was enthusiastic.

He brought out his best Tequila and in the most authentic way, we made our left hands into fists, licked them (our own) below index fingers, put a dash of salt on it, licked the salt, said Salud to each other, clinked the glasses, quickly drank the Tequila, bit into a piece of lemon (our own) and grinned at each other. (He grinned mischievously, I grinned sheepishly. The Tequila was bitter. I do not like bitter taste.)

We followed this ritual once more. Bambi, like her father, was a teetotaler and had assured me that she will intervene when necessary.

How are you feeling Sasu-ma? asked my son-in-law.

I am feeling ababsholutely fine. Thank you said I. I shupposh we can have one more shot. In a burst of pure inspiration, I added Amigo.

Mom, is there a problem? Bambi asked worriedly.

No, no, no troblem, I mean no proble at all. I assured her. However, my own sentence sounded strange to me, so I hastened to add that is jusht Shpoonerishm my dear.

Amigo declined to serve me any more Tequila.

The Tequila was taking effect by now. The colors of the walls looked brighter, the fruits in the fruit bowl were shinier and in my euphoria, I felt like laughing uncontrollably at Bambis worried face.

Another few minutes and I found that I was walking on the air, but the carpet was also coming up. Was it a magic carpet?

The carpet came up and hit me. When I tried to push the carpet away, I found that I just wanted to retch. Bambi took me to the bathroom where I threw up the full contents of my stomach.

It took me one full day to recover from the effects of that potent drink, and the hangover was unspeakable.

That was the first and the last time I ever got drunk. Nowadays, I too have turned teetotaler.

Since I had vowed NEVER to touch Tequila again, I did not put foot on the Taquile Island either. Those 500+ steps would not have deterred me otherwise.

Avi had not vowed to abstain from Tequila, so he went up and trekked the island.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tequila

People wanting to know more about Tequila can follow the above link. However, I will advice people NOT to drink it.