Our day starts early as we’re off to see the floating lakes of Lake Titicaca this morning before we embark on our us journey to Cusco, the gateway to Machu Picchu.
The floating island are great and it’s a quick 2 hour tour before we return to Puno. Our Guide drops up back to the hostel with a pick up in an hours time. We now have a little time to grab a few supplies before we embark on a 7 hour bus to Cusco.
It’s a small mini van that turns up and we’re quickly loaded aboard, I’m a little confused as the trip is long and I was expecting a bus. We’ re told that is mini van will connect with a larger bus in just over an hours time. It’s not too bad, Juliaca is a small town to the north. We get there early as the traffic out of Puno early in the morning favours us, so now we just have to wait. It’s 1/2 an hour before we’re all collected.
It’s getting close to lunch and our new guide passes around a lunch menu to be phoned ahead to a restaurant to speed up our journey and get us back on time. The lunch is nothing special, but it’s a budget way we’re traveling so expecting a five star dining experience is just not going to happen.
As soon as we’ve downed the chicken, chips and salad we’re back on the bus. Elena’s still struggling with a stomach bug and is feeling every bump in to road, she not speaking and is almost curled up in a fetal position on her seat. She’s really in bad shape but we are not in a position to slow the journey down, it means a lot of rebooking hotels, buses and planes. This whole trip has played havoc with Elena’s health. All we hope for is a quick journey.
The guide on the bus puts on a movie which helps distract us from the time it’s taking for the bus to traverse the terrain. Elena’s not interested, she’s just clenching her fists in pain and clutching her stomach.
It’s a rainy evening as we reach Cusco, Elena’s looking pale and the traffic is now jammed up in every direction. Road rules are thrown out the window and the police are blowing whistles on every intersection.
In the pouring rain our bags and all the passengers are crammed into the bus office. As the streets in Cusco are too narrow to negotiate with our huge coach, Peru Hop (the bus company) have organised taxis for us to get to our hostels. They’ve grouped us into 12 taxis, we’re in taxi 7.
Our taxi number is called, Elena’s sitting in the corner not really wanting to move and just wishing the ordeal would be over. I grab the packs and acknowledge the coordinator. Our bags are piled into the back of this little station wagon and another couple is traveling with us. The driver of the taxi seems nervous and struggles to reverse out into the two lanes of traffic that like the rain offer no reprieve. Another driver is playing wingman by banging on the roof of the car when we need to stop. Our nervous driver manages to get into the stream of traffic and approaches a roundabout. In the mad scramble he swipes the side of another car!
Now all the traffic is banking up , I yell at him to just go in Spanish so he’s in no illusion that we are not happy, we’ve been caged up all day in a bus and we’re not going to sit in the rain discussing insurance and crash details. GO GO GO VAMOS VAMOS! To which our driver totally understands. He drops off the other couple and then proceeds to get lost trying to find our hostel. I’m ready to blow my top, and I’m yelling at him to take a good look at the map provided by the bus company. He’s read it wrong and 15 minutes later after circling a couple of city blocks we’re finally at our hostel. Elena quickly gets the check in formalities out of the way and before you can say WiFi she’s in the room with her arse firmly planted on the toilet. She’s crying her eyes out and not in good shape.
Let’s hope Cusco turns it on for us tomorrow. Today is one we don’t want to repeat.
