Puno & Puno to Arequipa
Topic: Travel| 1 Comment »We got up early. Since doing the trail we don’t seem to be able to sleep in. The crazy thing is that the night before we were able to catch Celtics vs. Lakers on Spanish ESPN. Go Celtics!!!!
After another incredible breakfast where I decimated a entire papaya grove, we caught a local tricycle motor taxi. The body of this futuristic vehicle is made of thick saran wrap with a gap under the passanger seat so that the passangers can watch the drive train and the road. I also must add that the exhaust pipe exits right under the passanger seats for further comfort. It took four attempts to cross the railroad tracks. Luckily no train came.
The taxi dropped us off at the Yavari. The Yavari was a steam boat made in the UK for the Peruvian Navy on Lake Titicaca. The boat, consisting of over 2500 pieces, was sent by ship to northern Chile, then by train to south Peru and finally on mules’ back across the Andes which took the unfortunate mules 6 years. The ship was then assembled on Lake Titicaca and served in the Peruvian Navy before it was decommisioned and left to rust. BTW, since Lake Titicaca has no coal, at first the ship ran on dried llama dung before getting a diesel engine. About 20 years ago some Brits started a foundation to restore the iron ship to its former beauty.
We spent the rest of the morning just walking around the city. The start of the World Cup was taken very seriously-there was a parade of little kids in soccer uniforms carrying flags of the participating nations; and there was also a little fight at the bus station where everyone was glued to the TV screens playing France vs Uruguay.
Our bus ride from Puno to Arequipa was uneventful. We watched movies and slept.
