Hotel Europa Puno

I chatted with some Chilenos the night before, so i was concerned that i would sleep in and not make it to the bus station. Plus, I couldn´t really count on Corey because he had climbed to 20000 feet the day before. So luckily, i was up and ready to go at 7. We made it to our bus within 5 minutes and were on our way to Puno. The bus itself was about 6 and a half hours. It was an old bus, but i can´t really complain cause the bus system has been quite good to us. We arrived in Puno at 2:30 pm ...

we took a 5-hour bus ride from cajamarca down to the town of chiclayo just a couple of days ago. the town itself, like the few other coastal colonial towns we have stopped at, is centered around a plaza de armas, with the cathedral sitting on one whole block of real estate just off the plaza. just like trujillo, the cathedral in chiclayo is painted a pale yellow with the columns and trim in white. there´s not too much to do in chiclayo itself, although it´s a not a small city. for us (and mos...

We arrived in Puno, on the shores of Lake Titicaca after 6 hours on the Ormeńo "Royal Class" bus service so the journey was pretty painless with lots of sitting back and watching movies. As soon as we arrived and dropped off our bags, we organised a tour of the floating islands for the next day. We were up at 6.30am to meet our group and head on our way. We got to our boat and spent the first 20 minutes floating along through the reeds to get to the first Uros island. Our guide gave us a talk...

In Douglas Adams´ The restaurant at the end of the universe Arthur Dent finds out about something called the 'Shoe Shop Intensification Ray'. This evil device is aimed at a planet and works by convincing ordinary citizens to set up shoe shops. Far more shoe shops than could ever be practically necessary. Eventually there are so many shoe shops that society fails to function and the civilisation falls apart. I only mention this because the town of Chiclayo seems to have been badly affected. Th...

First off, it´s Lago Titi hhha hha, as Bruno, our horrendously boring tour guide explained more than a couple of times, and at 13,000+ feet, it is indeed the highest lake in the world with actual ship traffic. Bruno, if you´re reading this, you vehemently reinforce our reasons behind avoiding guided tours at all costs. However, we arrived on a night bus from Arequipa (6 hours) to be awoken by a charango (Peruvian Ukulele) playing maniac who somehow slipped aboard at 6am, with little time to a...

Después de un par de días de precelebración, llego el día de mi cumpleańos... a decir verdad, la entrada en Puno no fue precisamente triunfal: un freak en el hotel y todo cerrado para cenar. Con esa perspectiva, sólo quería salir de ese lugar... aunque estuviese a orillas del maravilloso lago Titikaka. Pero tomamos la decisión de ir a hacer el tour de las islas y pasar una noche en Amantaní, con una familia local. Si bien las islas Uros eran de los más turístico, todo un show, Amantaní era di...

Budím se při zastávce ve dvě ráno, kdyz pak ve čtyři hodiny to vypadá, ze stojíme pořád na stejném místě, myslím si, ze jsme do Puna dorazili dřív a nechávají nás dospat. V pět se mi chce na záchod a trochu mě zarazí, ze stojíme uprostřed nějaké pustiny a u otevřené kapoty bezradně stojí asi osm peruánců. Odolávám pokusení demonstrovat rčení zlaté české ručičky a vracím se do autobusu pokračovat ve...

Hello all! So we arrived in Puno, close to the Titicaca Lake. Here they pronounce it "Lake titi CRACRA" (use your throat as much as possible when you say it). This lake is where the Incas think the sun and the moon are born. We are 3.2 Km high here, and I am not talking about drugs. We were on the third floor of the Hotel Europa, which was ok, but I was almost dead when we arrived at the room. The city is really poor, except for the Gringo Alley, where all the nice restaurants and shops are. ...