IT IS THE END OF THE WORLD

Have you ever been in a thunderstorm at 13,000ft? Let me just say that I am glad that my first experience occurred while I was still in the city of Puno.

Last night I stayed late in the office to work. Around 6pm it started getting dark and windy, but I wanted to keep working through the hour. Suddenly the sky began to fall. It was raining very intensely, but within five minutes the rain turned into hail. The hail was no bigger than pinballs, but it was as if it was snowing! In the end there was about an inch of hail on the ground.

AND THE LIGHTINGING! Oh my God. Being closer to the sky equals being closer to each and every bolt. HOLY CRAP. If you have ever seen the electrical storm in the movie "War of the Worlds" with Tom Cruise, I think that you will have a good idea of what a normal storm is like here. The entire sky lit up at every ray. I couldn't even count through "one mississippi" before POW! BAM! BOOM! It felt like it was immediately on top of the building.

Needless to say, I quickly shut off the computer. People outside were running frantically in the hail storm. Most took shelter in the Cathedral across the street from my office. The temperature had dropped at least 15 degrees. For the first time I could see my breath in the air. I called a cab and was dropped off at the restaurant to meet Gerson and a friend. They were relaxing with a glass of wine, enjoying the weather. They did not even flinch while with EVERY bolt I jumped a few feet from my seat. "This is nothing", they commented. "The rainy season is only starting...and there will be storms like this once or twice a month."

WOW...I must say that experiencing Puno's storms is something else. I am not looking forward to the storms that start at 3am...and much less when I am living in the peasant communities in the rural sectors of Moho and Chucuito!