No toilet stops today...

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Sunday 23rd March
Easter Sunday, started 7am with firecrackers in the city. Meant got up in plenty of time to shower/finish packing. Ummed and arred about heading to Jacq's for that breakfast I never had, but go for the hotel one instead. It takes a while and I'm champing at the bit to get to the internet shop to back up my photos on DVD. The one I checked yesterday isn't open, but the next one is even cheaper. Whilst she is making my DVDs I'm uploading photos to the blog - computer's a bit slow so don't complete yet, but soon. Head out 1040 to get back to hotel for 11am charter bus. Rod is practically dancing in the street to get me to hurry up as our bus driver's wife has just died in childbirth (I think, very sad), so we're heading to the bus station to get the 11am public bus. It's 11.10 before our transfer taxi arrives, and he's been told if we miss the bus he'll have to catch it. We get to the station 11.25, and they've held the bus for us. We load on quickly - this bus is not even as nice as the second bus and smells quite a bit. We have 6-7 hours on here and we're not sure if we get lunch/toilet stops. We've been going for over 2 hours so far, and they've stopped to let bread/newspaper sellers on so I guess there's no stops... So no one's drinking anything. We have some snacks between us so guess it'll just be straight to dinner when we get there!

5 hours later and we're still going. Doesn't seem to have been any 'Banos' stops, although several food-sellers have got on... But we don't think this looks like Gringo food! Chicken/potatoes smelt good, hacked/served up from the floor of the bus (yes, it was on a protective layer!). We heard someone on the phone saying he expects to be in Puno about 630pm, so we have another 2 hours to go. Managed to spend 2 hours writing this, then an hour staring out the window, then an hour dozing, and now it's back to the MP3/staring out of the window. We're all feeling pretty dehydrated now and we're heading to higher and higher altitudes where we should be drinking more, but no one dares! Nice scenery, but all a bit same same after a while. So, it's now 640pm. We arrived on the outskirts of Puno about half-hour ago and still not sure how much further our finish point is. Kel and Anna had fun with a couple of Peruvian kids - teaching them numbers/colours, but otherwise we just all want to get to the hotel!

A couple of minutes after writing that the bus station comes into view and we're able to get off. A couple of minutes wait for our transfer bus and finally we're checked in, everyone rushes for 'el banos' and some warm clothes and we head to the restaurant. This is to be 'local food', but, again, it's a tourist restaurant - with the lovely musicians! Have a nice 'Russian Eggs' and 'Diet Chicken Soup' - both hearty portions and for S/20. Service is very slow' but the food is tasty, and by 10pm we're back in the hotel, packing overnight bags for our homestay tomorrow and catching an early night.

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