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The constant blockades in Peru meant that our travel plans were always subject to change. We were told on the morning of leaving La Paz that we may have to either stay in Bolivia for one more night or get an eight hour boat across the water. Not something I wanted to hear as I seem to suffer from severe sea-sickness. Luckily we were told that the road from the border to Puno was ok-ish, so everyone boarded the bus as planned. We had to stop a fair few times due to the odd people stuck in the middle of the road, but nothing major, until we came across one slightly sticky situation. The road was a constant gridlock, with rocks and other things in the middle of the road, and there was just no way were we able to pass through that. The bus driver lied to the protesters and said that he had a coach load who had to go to the airport, and they kindly let us past.....how nice of them. A bus in front of us was the first to go over the ramp, and hearts were in mouths when someone shouted on the bus "they have set fire to the bus". Everything was fine, but hearts were in mouths yet again when our bus appeared to be stuck on the ramp.
After leaving you on a cliff hanger on the last paragraph, I will tell you that we all arrived in puno all safe and well, and our hotel was very nice indeed. We all walked into the main street of Puno, and all the windows of the banks were smashed up. Some people took pictures of this as proof that they were there during the time of unrest in Peru. We all went to a nice restaurant and in contrast to Bolivia where I was trying to find one thing on the menu that was ok, here I was looking at the menu spoilt for choice. Our tour guide Vanessa told us how she eats chopsticks every now and again. Her English is superb, but on that one occasion, her comment seemed to get lost in translation. We played hangman whilst waiting for the food, which was introduced to get to know everyone more. It got competitive, and it was alittle too intellectual for me as I didn't know half the words by the end (joke...honest).
We visited the floating Islands and the Taquilie Island, and I must say the floating Islands made out of reeds were absolutely brilliant. It was something out of the ordinary (OBVIOUSLY), and it was one of the best things I have seen on my travels. Me and another lad proved to everyone how childish we were when we decided to wrestle each other to the floor in what looked like Hay. One of the girls shouted "Boys will be Boys". We went into one of the residents house, and it looked quite cosy. No cupboards or cabinets in this house, and there were no mattresses either. We went on a short small boat journey to our slightly bigger boat and I asked if I could have a go with the sticks (okay, oars). After 30 seconds, I suddenly realised that I would never quite make it as a professional rower.
After Puno, it was on to Cuzco. We sat in the bus station waiting for the bus and played chess to kill time. Some shoe shine kid was polishing my shoes (and they then looked as good as new again) whilst we were playing chess. I won 5 games out of 6, not bad eh? Playing chess and having my shoes cleaned, what a gentleman of leisure I have become (joke). Due to the blockades, we had to get the 12 hour bus journey during the day instead of the scheduled 6 hour one. The toilet stunk the bus out, and the driver seemed to have a death wish on the narrow curvy roads. It wasn't one for the faint hearted, but we arrived all in one piece for a short stay in Cuzco before going to Ollyantambo for one night, en-route to our Inca Trail starting point. We saw some nice Archaeological sites the day before our Inca trail hike which was about to set us up for the awe inspiring Machu Picchu.
The next Blog will be (if you didn't already guess) the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu
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