"D" is for Down to sea level once more...

Remember back when I started writing this Peru blog, and I talked about the three main symbols of Peru? The puma, the condor and the snake? The snake represents the under world, the puma represents the middle world,  where man lives, and the condor represents the upper world, where the Gods live.

You see these symbols everywhere, from carvings done in the time of the Incas to designs sewn into sweaters and socks. And on nice wooden plates:

The city of Cusco itself is laid out in the shape of a puma, although it's hard to discern now, urban sprawl even effects places in Peru. 

Even remote Puno has...or I guess I should say "had", some spectacular viewpoints. The reason I say "had" is because they seem to have been abandoned and left for parties and graffiti artists. 

This is the condor....look at the size of that thing! I didn't walk up, in hindsight I wish I had, the view was apparently astounding, but at the time my feet felt like this: 

I skipped all those stairs and went and people watched in the square. However, the morning that we left Puno, we stopped at the other viewpoint:

Overlooking Puno and the edge of Lake Titicaca. What's that you say? That building in the background looks like snakeskin you say? Is it?

Why, yes, yes it is.

The puma was also there, it was huge. And sort of creepy.

But the view was breathtaking. 

My last view of the the top of the world. We hopped on our bus and headed towards the scary Juliaca, our gateway back to Lima.

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The airport at Juliaca is like the airports in Mexico and Cuba...small and very casual and very crowded. The usual souvenir areas and the inevitable band that plays the local music and sells CDs. Line ups are non-existent and people just push thier way past you. It was a bit of chaos when the plane started to board, there were two or three lines and two planes out there,the fear of getting on the wrong plane was a bit strong actually, what with not speaking spanish and all....but I kept sight of Shidy and ended up on the right flight..Being the only tourists there today, and it being the scary Juliaca, I just let myself be dragged along with the crowd...you want to get in line in front of me? Well, go right ahead....

It struck me as funny that when you fly out of Cranbrook, the announcement says that "When we reach 10,000 feet we will start the drink and snack service" whereas here, on the ground, we were already at 12,500 feet!  Lhasa, in Tibet is just under 12,000 feet, so the altitude here is not to be messed with. 

All too soon, we were back in Lima, and back once again at the Hotel Britania.

One final day to go....