Edwin Banegas Flores, my principle linguistic consultant, and I have just traveled from Lima to Puna via Arequipa by bus. We’ll be in Puno for the next few days while we arrange transport to Moquegua and hopefully get a chance to see the floating islands. This visit is made all the more interesting given some of the talks last week at the PUCP about the contested history of the region, wrt the previous Uru and Pukina settlements here.
Although we try to make time for tourism, we spend four hours every morning working on Moqueguan Aymara (mainly transcribing and translating free speech).
Planning on arriving in Moquegua late this week or early next week. For now here’s a panorama shot of Puno from a nearby mountaintop. It’s a great city.
