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Saturday, 12 July 2008

Day 27: Puno to Lima

The trip home began as we returned to sea level and warmth in Lima for a day before the flight to Miami tomorrow night. The experience of the ride to the airport was enhanced by a police check point stop at which the bus driver used a bribe to get us to the flight from Puno on time.
Day 26: Lake Titicaca

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The high,cold, deep, huge lake is named for the puma and is inhabited by indigenous people who build floating islands from the reed root mats and homes from the reeds of the lake. We were treated to a reed boat ride and invited into the homes of a family.
Day 25 Cusco to Puno

The Inka Express bus carried us on an extended 9-hour ride through the Andes from Cusco south to the high plain of Puno, across Lake Titicaca from Bolivia. The ride was slowed by the boulders and other obstacles remaining in the roads from the national strike.

Although skilled and professional, the bus driver was unable to avoid a bicycling man who veered unexpectedly into the bus, requiring a physician passenger's assistance and rides to the clinic and hospital. Fortunately, the man emerged from the accident in better condition than the bus window.

Our destination, Puno, is the driest, highest, and most industrial area we have seen, with a large proportion of the transportation provided by gas and human powered tricycles.

Wednesday, 09 July 2008

Day 24 Ollantaytambo, Peru

It was a relaxing day in the village with only a small group of strikers. We learned that the bus that would have evacuated us was stopped along the way and the protests became violent. The innkeepers ran around the town to gather breakfast for us and helped us with laundry--our saviors! We got a 10 PM bus back to Cusco where our hotel has space for the night--along with hot showers and our luggage with the clean clothes we could not carry on the backpacker train.
Days 22-23 Machu Picchu, Peru

Over two exciting days, we took the 90-minute backpacker train from Cusco to the town at the base of Machu Picchu, Aguas Calientes, and visited the park twice: in the afternoon and at sunrise. Llamas roamed as living lawnmowers.
Although we planned to return to Cusco on the afternoon train, a train strike pushed our travel to an evening train part of the distance. Then, because of a national labor strike blocking the roads to Cusco, we could not leave the village where the train stopped. It would have been impossible to find lodging for the night among the other stranded travelers if our travel company did not have a local contact with a family member preparing an inn to open. The inn took our group, building beds to accommodate us in triple rooms.
In the middle of the night, the travel company sent a bus to evacuate us to Cusco, threatening that if we did not leave we could be stuck for days and the town might not receive food or operate business during the strike. The innkeeper´s husband, a military captain, advised us that the road was not safe, so we stayed.