LAKE TITICACA

                                             A High Altitude City

  Puno, located on the Andean plateau is dominated by Lake Titicaca, sacred place of the Incas and home to natural and artificial islands. Titi means puma and caca means stone.   The Incas thought Lake Titicaca was shaped somewhat like a puma, but after looking at a map, I thought that took a lot of imagination. The highest navigable lake in the world is 100 miles long and covers 3200 square miles. The depth ranges from 15-20 to 900-feet deep with the northern end of the lake  the deepest. The altitude and hot sun cause a tremendous amount of evaporation.  Titicaca, located between Peru and Bolivia, is the largest lake in South America.

     Spanish founded Puno in 1668 because of its closeness to the colonial silver mine of Laykakota. The altitude is 12,565-feet above sea level and the greater  area population is 102,800. Its inhabitants are proud of their Quechua and Aymara past. Many inhabitants, especially women, daily wear colorful traditional dress

    Puno is a small port city where the main industry is tourism.  Agriculture and cattle raising are important and the area is well known for its herds of llamas and alpacas. The main crops are potato, quinoa  and other tubers, but limited access to fertilizers and seeds means low yields allowing only for subsistence farming.

    Smoke from unvented fires wafts through Puno’s streets, along with edgy waves of traffic with constant  honking horns including taxis and three-wheeled cycles that urge pedestrians to the narrow slivers of sidewalks. It is not a pedestrian friendly city.  Puno’s churches are characterized by their distinctive colonial architecture. Several plazas provide shops and restaurants.

    Rural population struggles with poverty where surviving is the main priority, illiteracy is high at 22% and higher among females than males. Health and malnutrition are related to extreme poverty, lack of clean water and sanitation infrastructure..

    The big attraction for tourists visiting Puno is the Eros people and their floating islands which were once their homes. More about them on another day

Some Swiss Foods

                                                   Some Swiss Foods

     Switzerland offered many new food delights. Rosti, a shredded potato shaped similar to a hash-brown, is fried with a bit of onion and served with melted cheese. There are many variations to this dish. I learned that a scallop has nothing to do with fish. A Swiss scallop is a meat similar to a pork or veal chop.

     Soups are creamy or clear but never chunky. Clear soup was broth-type  with tiny pieces of shredded veggies floating on top. Other soups were creamy and often green in color, although they are not anything like a pea soup. All veggies are pureed before making a soup.

     Knocchi is a spoon-size potato dumpling. It is often covered with a mushroom sauce topped with tiny pieces of nut and specks of spinach.

     It is not unusual to see horse on a Swiss menu.  I can’t remember the name of it, but be assured that horses are bred and grown for their meat, just as we do the same with cattle.

    Macaroni and cheese is a bit different. Small chunks of potato are added  and a white cheese is used to make the sauce. It is served with a spoonful of sautéed onion on top. Applesauce is served on the side, which seemed like a strange combination to me but of course kids love it.

    Salads come a couple of ways. A green salad is exactly that---a bowl full of mixed greens. One must order a mixed salad if you want anything but greens, and it will come with mounds of different julienne vegetables around the outside of the plate. Beets and corn are often included.

You have to mix the salad yourself and they are always served with mild Italian-like dressing.

 Bread is usually served before a meal, but it is eaten dry. No butter in sight. 

    Ah, the yummy cheese fondue.  The well-known Swiss dish needs no explanation. On one hiking trip our  guide hosted a fondue party for our small group. It even tastes better when you make it yourself and the empty dishes attested to that!

Australia's Flying Doctors

                                              Busy Medical Service

     Wireless, wings, and stethoscopes---Down Under that refers to the Royal Flying Doctor Service. I looked forward to and was fascinated with the interesting visit to the service  in the middle of the Australian Outback.

    In a small auditorium we viewed a fantastic film of the Service in action, learning that the service started in1928 with one plane. Today, in Alice Springs, the Service operates with six doctors, six nurses, six pilots, three planes and three engineers.  The goal is to do three clinics a day or 1000 a year in the Outback.

    Everyone works a 12-hour shift for two days, has one day off and then repeats. The  annual budget is 9-million dollars. Tourists involved in accidents, many at Uluru or Ayers Rock, account for 18% of their calls, and most of the averaged five evacuations a day are also from Uluru.

     A drug box containing 100 drugs packaged by number, not name, is kept at numerous outposts around the country. Much prescribing is  done by phone. The Service at Alice Springs covers an area of 70 kilometers in any direction from the city. The population of this area, including the city, is approximately 16,000. The pilots have access to 150 air-strips. The entire Service covers 2.3 million square kilometers.

    Today the Service is in the hands of six mainland sections, each having one or more radio control stations. There are 16 base locations around the country from which Flying Doctors operate. In total the Service employs 27 doctors, 58 nurses, 65 pilots, 34 engineers, 51 admin staff,46 mechanics and other staff and 9 general hands.

    No other service in the world operates over such a vast territory providing such a comprehensive health service. They are not merely an aerial ambulance, but a remote area health care provider. They are 2 hours or less from each location. What a fantastic service and outfit!

Fabulous Opera House

                                         Sydney's most Unique Building

     I  have seen a lot of historic and beautiful buildings, but I was intrigued with one of the most notable landmarks in the world---the Sydney Opera House, touring it both times when in Australia.

     Standing the height of a 22-story building  and facing the harbor, the sailed structure has quite a history. Enormous controversy and debate existed in 1959 with the inception of the idea for an opera house. The dazzling and dramatic design of Danish architect, Joern Utzon, won an international competition. The technology did not exist in the 1950s to build the sails that form the roof and walls, B U T

     Built in three stages, the original cost estimate was $7-million dollars with a projected construction time of four years. But as most often happens, the cost actually was $102-million and construction took 15 years!  A special lottery paid the additional bills and the opera house was completely paid for by mid-1970, just two years after opening.

     One day while peeling an orange Utzon  had the inspiration to construct the shells from rib sections forming the skeleton of the building,  then prefabricated and joined together with 217-miles of tension steel. In 1966 Utzon resigned from the project and a team of  Australian architects took over the project, completing stage two in about a year. The 1,056,000 white Swedish tiles covering the roof appear as a mosaic.

     The term Opera House is really a misnomer as it is actually a performing arts center housing 1000 rooms including the opera theater, concert hall, reception hall, drama theater, five rehearsal studios, four restaurants, six theater bars, many foyers and lounge areas, 60 dressing rooms, library, admin offices and extensive plant and machinery areas.

     The power supply, adequate for a city of 25,000, involves 400 miles of electrical cable run from 120 distribution boards. There are 12 miles of air conditioning duct. How would you like to trouble shoot those systems.

    It is truly a fantastic building and one that is recognized around the world.

LES TRUCK

                                         Various Grade of Truck

     I have ridden numerous forms of transportation in my many travels, but was not aware of les truck until my visit to the South Pacific.  The first such ride was in Bora Bora, Tahiti. Tahiti is both an island and a country, and Bora Bora is one of the three major islands in the country.

     As it turned out Bora Bora’s les truck was the most luxurious of all such rides.  The open air mini bus was decorated with live hibiscus flowers that wound around the truck’s poles. Palm fronds accented with red torch ginger flowers decorated the inside of the bus. It was all tropical and very pleasing to the eye.

    This  ‘tour bus’ stopped frequently, as Bora Bora is an incredibly beautiful island with a photo  op around every curve of the twenty-two mile road circling the island.

    On the island of Aitu in the Cook Islands where we literally surfed from our anchorage to the island shore, the les truck turned out to be literally a pickup truck with wooden benches lining the sides of the truck bed. It was the only transportation on the small island. The friendly people preformed some native dancing and provided a delicious feast of fresh fruit/food t for us.

     Padded chairs in the truck bed of les truck  provided a bit more comfortable ride on the island of Aitutaki. The single road around the bigger island was also in better condition than the rutted tire road on Aitu.

     Arriving in Raratonga, the largest of the Cook Islands, les truck gave way to real buses, albeit small ones. The two yellow public buses ran around the island on a semi-regular schedule. One ran clockwise while the other ran counter-clockwise (island expression). These buses can be flagged down anywhere and stopped anywhere, even with service to your door, if you live on the main road.

     Les Trucks were colorful, romantic and fun. I do believe generally one would be more comfortable driving one rather than riding in one, with Raratonga being the exception..