November 22nd, 2021
I’ve had a few timing issues with Peru Hop, the bus service I have been using. In Huacachina the pick-up time was 3 hours later than my online ticket stated, then there was the mess up with the wrong date for Colca Canyon which resulted in me getting up at 2:30 am twice and now one more today. The online itinerary said that the pick-up time for heading to Puno from Arequipa was between 5:15-5:45 am. I set my alarm for 4:45 but there was a knock on my door at 4:43 and it was a Peru Hop guide. What?!? Luckily, I had packed up the night before and within 5 minutes I was out the door. Turns out I wasn’t the only one caught off guard. Shane from Ireland, who was my roommate on the last night in Colca Canyon, was in the shower the first time the bus stopped at his hostel so it returned twenty minutes later. Oh Peru Hop.
Our small
tourist bus picked up some more backpackers before heading to the main bus terminal
in Arequipa. We then boarded a double
decker bus which was pretty comfy. It
took a while to get out of the city even though it was 6:30 in the
morning. The road system of the city
just isn’t very efficient as there are hardly any expressways.
The trip was nice with some good views of lakes surrounded by treeless hills. The odd group of llamas and alpacas were grazing in the fields. I did see the results of a couple of car accidents though. One was a car flipped over off the side of the road and the other was a truck with two trailers that had rolled onto its side. On the latter accident, my guess is that the driver fell asleep. It must have happened a few hours earlier as they were already unloading the cargo and putting it into another truck. Check your seatbelt Dave!
My first views of Lake Titicaca:
We pulled
into Puno close to noon and my first impressions weren’t glowing. It’s a hilly city on the shores of Lake
Titicaca but it looked like 1 out of 3 buildings were unfinished, just brick
shells. The streets seemed narrow and
congested as well. Oh well, I’m only
here for one night.
After settling
in at my hotel called Suite Independencia, which was a clean, decent place in
which I think I was the only occupant, I ventured out to find some lunch. I stumbled upon the city’s Plaza de Armas and
one of the streets branching off from it was for pedestrians only. I tried to locate a Rasta bar/restaurant that
I had found online but it was closed. As
I was looking at a menu from another restaurant with a woman trying to sell me
on the place, the Peru Hop guide and three tourists from the bus earlier showed
up. I guess I found the right place if
the guide is bringing them here.
We had a
nice lunch in a courtyard and then set off on our separate ways. I decided to try and find the Mirador del
Condor, a lookout supposedly at the top of 600 some stairs. It shouldn’t be nearly as tough as the Colca
Canyon but we were at a higher elevation here.
I eventually found the set of stairs and was already half way up so it
didn’t take much to get to the top. The
views of the lake and the city were quite nice.
Walking up to the lookout:
Who does this dog remind you of?
That evening I met up with the Dutch couple Reinier and Sibel for dinner. Where? Well at the same restaurant where I had lunch as Reinier had seen great reviews for it online…and it was a tasty meal. They were essentially a day ahead of me on the gringo trail so they had visited the islands on Lake Titicaca today and gave me some info about it as that was my plan for tomorrow. Then I would be on a night bus to Cusco.
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