Look, a Puma!

Okay, this is not really a puma, it is an ancient fish-like creature carved into a stone.  Leisa and I had many giggles over Roberto proclaiming, "It's a puma!" about nearly every rock formation we saw.  Most times we needed to look outside the box to remotely interpret a puma, but we appreciated his excitement.  

At Pukara, the first regional population center in the northern Lake Titicaca Basin, he explained that in ancient times there were puma's that swam and puma's that flew. We decided this must be one of the swimming varieties.  

I think symbolically he was referring to the power of the puma encompassing all the levels of the Peruvian trilogy. The uhupacha or under world where our ancestors dwell, symbolised by a serpent. Kaypacha, the middle world archetype of the puma, where we live.  Finally, the upper world, hanaqpacha, the house of the gods represented by the condor.

Because we are connected to all of these levels all the time but live in the kaypacha, he wanted to elucidate the power of the puma which is about the life cycle.  Mulching the old energies to create the new.  Pukara is identified by impressive monolithic sculptures with a variety of geometric, zoomorphic, and anthropomorphic images plus intricate, multi-coloured pottery in a variety of ritual and domestic forms.  We generally avoid museums on our travels preferring to skip the tourist trail when possible, but this little place was worth the visit and broke up the long drive back from Lake Titicaca.

Further down a long dirt road we stopped in a random corner shop wondering why, when Roberto informed us we would be having the best fresh lamb there!  Earlier we had stopped in a very small town for the "best ever" white cheese and cheese-bread.  We hadn't been disappointed by that so we ventured into this tiny store with a small table.  Someone found chairs for us while we watched a woman with a big knife unwrap a freshly cooked entire lamb.  We were served plates of the succulent meat and no utensils or serviettes.  This is why we travel with hand-wipes!

Here I am with Felix, our driver and Roberto across from me, about to dig in.  Roberto said that even 30 year vegetarians broke their meat fast and indulged here.  You can just see the woman behind Felix carving away.  The whole place was fragranced with eau de lamb!

We all had second helpings while gradually the room filled up with locals coming to buy their own portions to take home.  By the time we left, the entire lamb was nearly finished!

Appetites satisfied we hit the road again and drove through the stunning mountain scenery.  Roberto opened his window to blow prayers into a handful of coca leaves to honour the Puno Region as we left it and welcome the Cusco Region as we re-entered it.  The wind was howling and there was a light rain as he let the leaves fly out of the window. Most of them whipped right back into the backseat and into my face! We were in hysterics as I gathered up the prayer filled leaves, blew some more into them and set them free out of my window.

Puma leaves, leaping, flying and landing.  Puma's appear in cloud formations, mountains and anywhere you look for them.  Since then often when Leisa and I see something interesting, rare or funny we say, "Look, it's a puma!"