19 adults in a minivan....

---

Hello! Once again we are a few days behind in updating this blog but we will do our best to bring you all up to speed on the last few days. They have been exhausting, adventure filled days!

We started out early from our Copacabana hotel in Bolivia, and walked over to where we were suspossed to meet our bus to go back to Peru and on to Arequipa. We had paid for our ticket two days earlier and felt assured that this would confirm us a seat on the bus for the 12 hour journey. However, we have learnt that nothing goes according to plan in South America....

We arrived at the bus stop only to be told by several ladies in straw hats that we had no reservation and their gestures indicated they wanted us to move aside. We joined about 8 other confused travellers and all stood with our tickets in hand wondering what was going on. Soon the bus was loaded and left, leaving our small group bewildered on the corner. Eventually a rickety, shell of an old white minivan pulled up and we received instruction by the ladies in the straw hats to throw our bags on the roof of the van and pile in. We continued to fill this minivan until we were very cosy to say the least. We headed for the Bolivia and Peru border. Once at the border we unloaded our bags from the roof, walked across the border and boarded a different minivan which we were told would take us for 5 minutes to a bus. We again piled in to the minivan, this time feeling a little more at ease as we knew we only had 5 minutes to the bus.

Once again we unloaded our baggage from the top of the van, and were instructed to stand as a group on the sidewalk and wait. Eventually we were told there was no bus to take us but that we had the ¨option¨ of getting into another rickety old van which would take us to Puno, Peru....where we were once again told we could transfer to a bus once there. Seeing that there was really no other option being offered, we all piled in again but this time with a few extra Peruvians added in. The total number of passengers for the two hour journey to Puno was 19 adults, sitting shoulder to shoulder, knee cap to knee cap. The roads were not paved and thus the entire ride was like sitting on a roller coaster, think Canada´s Wonderland´s Mindbuster.

Once we arrived in Puno, we were instructed by a man whom we had picked up on the side of the road mid-journey that we were to pick up our luggage and trek over to another bus terminal in town. So there we were once again, a pack of lost foreigners walking through the dirty dusty market streets. Although we were making these confusing transfers as a group, we were speaking in a combination of English, French and German, making the situation rather confusing but we arrived at the bus station.

Once at the bus station in Puno, we had an extremely long wait in a very very stinky bus terminal. This time to our surprise we were actually put on a bus for the rest of our trip to Arequipa. This bus ride was 7 and a half hours. The length of the ride was mostly due to the fact that we stopped repeatedly to pick up locals and for them to stop at the roadside to buy food from street vendors, or for them to go to the washroom in the desert as there was no facility on the bus. Thankfully we arrived in Arequipa and were glad our last minute hotel reservation went through and we could sleep soundly for the night.

---