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Blogs from Puno, Puno, Peru, South America - page 6
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June 3rd 2010
jueves, 3 de junio Sad day. Time to leave Bolivia. Met some cool people, loved the locals, great scenery and the budget is well and truly back on track. Even with recent mishaps we'd definitely come back. Not this trip, time for Peru. Home of Machu Picchu. Home of a president re-elected despite destroying the economy so bad in the 80s the currency had to be changed to new soles. Home of bus robberies. Home of more winding roads overlooking cliffs. Home of drivers who don't sleep enough. Best of all, away from altitude. The crossover to the Peruvian border was supremely uneventful, apart from the lady crying with outstretched hand. Not that we thought we would but we have evidently not escaped the poverty. It's a nice way to enter a country on the bus ... read more
May 18th 2010
Got up early for the first time in a few days, showered, packed and paid up, finally managing to actually leave the hostel after Edwin, the hostal owner, banged on for a while about reviews we could write for him, bad reviews others had written about the hostel and what we should see in Puno. We said good bye to the pussies, grabbed a quick breakfast in the bakery and jumped in a cab to the terminal. Which turned into another nightmare - we got there at 12 as requested, at 12.15 went to try and get through the gates, where the security guy wouldn’t accept our tickets. He then ran around the gate, gave them to the police who wandered off upstairs with them, there was total confusion as one guy was saying that there ... read more
May 14th 2010
Another example of lost in translation - at breakfast we were offered scrambled eggs instead of papaya juice in case we hadn't liked the juice the day before. An interesting trade off - but they had observed correctly as Chris drunk none of his the day before. I was however looking forward to mine so ordered one juice and one portion of eggs. The Spanish was all very simple and straightforward, so were utterly bemused when we received a juice and portion of eggs each! As well as our bread, butter and jam and my te con leche (tea with milk, literally just that - no hot water, just tea and hot milk.. starting to really enjoy it). With a few hours before our bus to Puno, what else could we do but shop - some ... read more
May 13th 2010
Big towers in a vast landscape on the high plateau. Built by the Collas, a Pre-Colombian culture. On a peninsula. And all towers watch the lake with their doors to the east where the sun rises. For the ancient Andean cultures death was not the end. ... read more
April 28th 2010
sooooooo...that is not quite the truth because, as always, I am a little bit behind with my blogs and so it was quite a few nights ago now. But what a day. It was amazing. We spent the day travelling on Lake Titicaca, which is absolutley stunning. This huge Lake looks like the sea because it is so vast and has green mountainous areas as backdrop. It was truly beautiful, albeit a little breezy. We still enjoyed some time on the top of the boat gazing out into the blueness. The origin of the name Titicaca is unknown. It has been translated as "Rock Puma ", allegedly because of its resemblence to the shape of a puma hunting a rabbit, combining words from the local languages Quechua and Aymara. We reached Taquille Island and had lunch ... read more
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April 23rd 2010
We have sadly departed from the Smith family and we left them in Cusco, while we hopped on the Andean Express and headed off to visit Puno. The train ride was the best one that we have had yet, the seats were quite luxurious, and there were some live entertainment. It was nice to have the freedom to move around during our ten hour ride into puno, as well as a bathroom to use whenever needed. The food on the train wasn't quite what we were expecting, and we are almost certain that mom's chicken lunch was the cause of her violent food poisoning. At this point in time we are all (Minus Jody) taking Cipro for digestive malfunctions... and I will leave it at that. We were a little afraid as we approached Puno, because ... read more
February 4th 2010
Feb 4th 2010 Puno, Inka Explorer tour to Puno The following morning we had a great breakfast in the Cross Keys pub where the baked beans are real, you don't come across that often here, It s a traditional English pub though somewhat quiet that may be because we always were there at odd times. I have made an observation here that I find amusing if not a wee bit revolting, Spitting, I think it might be a national pastime, Men Women and children participate with gusto, it is not socially unacceptable to cough up a lungful and launch in in any chosen directional regardless of any unfortunate who may be unlucky enough to be standing in its path, mind your boots I tell you. Puno has a festival which is one of the most popular ... read more
February 4th 2010
4th Feb 2010, Puno/Lake Titicaca We arrived in Puno at dark where we were met by our Hotel transfer by a lovely lad named Roy, We stayed in a place called Hotel Antiqua, A lovely place with great staff, our room was comfortable if not quite luxurious. We cleaned up and went to meet Claire who as luck would have it had the hotel next door, We went to the main square to meet Hugo our guide as we wanted to treat him to dinner, he never showed but there was huge crowds so we may have missed him, We needed food it had been a long day. We headed for the main street (Calle de Lima) while fire crackers exploded above our heads, women danced around us in stunning attires, brass bands tried to outdo ... read more
Another tragedy cuts short another trip
Published: January 31st 2010South America » Peru » Puno » Puno
January 30th 2010
After a poor nights sleep in the cold and wet night on Amantani i was dissappointed to have silvia knock on our door for the wake up call. She did go some way to making it up to me by eplaining that breakfast was ready on the table. So with this information we rushed to get ready, when we got downstairs we had pancakes ready. I was really pleased and coincidently didnt care what hour it was or that i haven eaten meat in at least 2 days or so. After breakfast we headed down to the docks, we said our goodbyes and thankyous to Silvia. I gave her one of my jumpers as a thankyou. This is because the zip had broken though so i wanted to pick up a new one. After leaving Silvia ... read more
January 9th 2010
We said goodbye to Cory and Cusco on the morning of the 27th and headed for Puno and Lake Titicaca. I've been told that Lake Titicaca is best seen from the Bolivian side, and I think I can see why now. Puno is nice enough, but doesn't really compare to Bolivia's port of Copacabana (at least from what I've seen in pictures and other blogs). But Americans have to pay around $150 to get the Bolivian visa, and we didn't feel it was worth it for only a couple of days. Our first night there was pretty low-key... we sat in our hostel, watched TV, and drank tea. We left the next morning around 6:30AM for a boat tour of the lake. It took about an hour to reach our first destination, Islas Flotantes (the Floating ... read more
