Birthday irony

18th June 2011

Why ironic? Because a week ago I was cursing the protests in Puno for making us miss Lake Titicaca and fly from La Paz to Cusco. And here I am today looking out over Lake Titicaca because the same protests have stopped our bus going all the way to Arequipa.

Why birthday? Because it’s my birthday, silly.

We were supposed to get a night bus from Cusco to Arequipa, spend the day exploring Peru’s most beautiful city and then pick out a nice restaurant for a celebratory meal. By a quirk of Peru’s tragic lack of useful roads, the route from Cusco to Arequipa dog-legs via Puno, the same border town on our failed route from La Paz to Cusco. Guess what? They’re still protesting.

So the main road is blocked and we had to take a bus which goes via a longer route. Cue a fourteen hour overnight bus from Cusco to Puno. My birthday morning involved wandering around Puno to confirm that what people say is true; it’s a dump whose only redeeming feature is being on Lake Titicaca. But since we were only waiting four hours in Puno we didn’t have the time to go exploring the lake. We did manage a decent spot of lunch, but then it was back to the bus station for my afternoon treat: the rest of our bus journey to Arequipa. We’re meant to arrive around 8pm, though if the first bus was any indication it’ll be more like 9:30.

It’s a surprisingly nice bus. The seats are comfy, with good leg rests. They brought around snacks and drinks, and there’s a couple of movies for in-flight… in-drive… whatever entertainment. It even has a loo on board. We certainly didn’t get that in Nepal!

Nevertheless, bit of an odd birthday really.

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This entry was posted on Monday, June 20th, 2011 at 11:36 pm and is filed under Peru. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.