Peru – July 9
Today we are departing Cusco and heading about 7 hours south
to Puno, on the edge of Lake Titicaca. We
have arranged our bus travel online, despite the numerous attempts and
solicitations to assist us with our travel plans. All in all, we think we have made a good
plan. We made a quick visit to the bus
station on the outskirts of town yesterday just to make sure we knew where to
go and what time to be there. We eat our
continental breakfast and say “adios” to the Hostal Munay Killariy and wave
down a taxi to get us to the station by 7:45am.
Upon our arrival, we have to wait a bit since the bus has not yet
arrived….hmmm. By all accounts, this
should be a nice bus with reclining seats that look like an easy chair. Bad memories of our travels in Thailand by
bus are coming back to haunt us. Once on
the bus, we cannot believe how roomy and comfortable the seats are. We are on the second level of the bus, which
turns out to be okay. We have a fairly
uneventful ride to Puno and arrive around 4pm.
We get a taxi to take us to our hotel which is only a few blocks
away. The hotel we booked online and it
had fabulous reviews. We are greeted by
a doorman and whisked into the reception area of a lovely colonial style
building. The manager on duty is rather
brusk when asking for our passports and seems to examine them rather closely
before making multiple copies of them.
When I ask him why he is looking so closely at where we have travelled,
he dismisses my question by saying this is strictly routing procedure. When I point out that no other hotel in Peru
has done this, he says that it is a mere formality and all hotels should be
doing the same….hmmm. After being duly
examined, we check into our rooms. None
of us is very impressed with Puno. It is
completely downtrodden and dirty….there is no appeal whatsoever that we can
see. It brings our spirits down a bit,
but after a brief rest, we venture out to dinner around the corner. The meal is lovely and we return to the hotel
sated and sleepy.
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