Our Peruvian Welcome!

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Welcome to PERU!! Or so we thought!!! (We were all happy to leave Bolivia and begin to scope out a new country.)

Originally, our first stop in Peru was supposed to be Puno, located on the Peruvian side of Lake Titicaca. It is famous for the floating islands and not much else besides its cesspool smelling waterfront. On our way there, rumors spread through the tourist bus that Peru's transportation sector was going on a 3-day strike starting the next day.

We had a group huddle and decided to skip Puno and go straight to Arequipa avoiding the risk of getting stuck in stinky cold Puno for 3 days. In other words, a 3 hour bus ride turned into a 10 hour one.

Crossing the border was somewhat of a challenge for me as I was battling a cough. With the H1N1 ¨pandemic¨ everyone crossing the boarder needs to go through a health check. Holding in my coughs for the health check and then the immigration officer was not so easy.

After crossing into Peru, we arrived in Puno where we had to change buses. The new bus we got on was significantly nicer than its Bolivian counterpart. A welcomed change! The people were also less tolerant of lazy bus drivers since they started screaming ¨Vamos¨ and banging on the windows when the bus did not depart on time. This behavior continued on the many stops the bus made until we reached Arequipa.

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Photos

Peruvian Corn
Gali

Peruvian Corn
Dani

The Singer
Weirdest thing ever. This kid came on and started singing. He had the WORST voice, worse than mine!!!!!