Cuzco - Puno

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Today me and john got up relatively early, had breakfast (which we forgot to have yesturday) and grabbed a taxi down to the coach station. The Taxi took us through some quite poor parts of Cuzco - real Cuzco. These areas were quite interesting as they probably had a lot more character then the touristic bits. they were dirty smelly and chaotic, full of life really.

The coach station was manic with every stall trying to sell you tickets to places aggressively. We managed to grap a Panamericano bus (which sounded to us as being quite good) but then suddenly discovered the bus advertised on the poster wasnt the one we were getting.

It was a very old rickety thing with no toilet (it was to be a 7 hour journey with no stops!!!)

The roads in peru (or the one to Puno t least) are 50% tarmac and 50% broken tarmac. Very bumpy. The bus was over booked with people sitting in the isles. (I worked out that parents cant afford to buy tickets for their kids so they are the ones who tend to end up sitting in the isle)

After 4 hours the bus stared to make some strange noises and the drivers assistent (35ish the driver cant have been for then 17 years of age) came to open a hatch right by my feet to get to something located under the bus (all this while the bus was still in motion). Whatever it was he managed to fix it - me and john figured he may have been the Peruvian version of Keanu Reeves.

Finally after really difficult journey and a change t Juliaci we made it o Puno.

Puno is a small port on Lake titicaca nd it isnt the nices place i´ve ever been. Buildings all look half finished (but most of the non touristic parts of Peru look like this.) The one thing I like about Puno is that the streets are all very narrow and with the Thai style bike taxis it has a lot of hussel and bussel.

Once arriving at the hoastel a hugh storm erupted and it begn to hail heavily.

After an hour it stopped and me John and German fella we met on the bus went out for a bite to eat. I had Alpaca kebab which was excellent (A lot like really nice lamb). Then we went to bar for a drink. The bar/club was completely empty and we started up conversation with the bar owner. The German fella who spoke perfect spanish did most of the talking. To my suprise I could get most of the jist of the conversation (amazing what a couple of weeks in a spanish speaking country does for you). Apparently the bar owner (policeman by day) was desparate for us to stay nd kept telling us that a whole group of Chicas was about to turn up. He also gave us free drinks. After an hour and with us still being the only ones in their we left and crashed.

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