LAKE TITICACA
After staying 3 nights in Arequipa, I boarded a bus to Puno, a port city on lake Titicaca. Lake Titicaca is the highest navigable lake in the Americas, sitting at about 3800 meters above sea level (roughly 11,000 feet or so). The bus ride was about 6 hours, and I knew I wasn't going to spend the night in Puno, so I wanted to arrive early to take advantage of the entire day. So I bought my bus ticket for 7am. Like a good gringa, I arrived at 6:50am. Like good Peruvians, the bus arrived at the station at 7:45am, people were still boarding at 8:30am, and we finally set off at 9am.
I had found the cheapest ticket at only 15 Soles (about $5). And you really get what you pay for.... the bus was really old, smelled, and stopped only once in the middle of the desert so that everyone could get out and relieve themselves. I had to put up with 6 hours next to a fat man who didn't wear deodorant, next to a window that didn't open. Ugh...
But finally I arrived in Puno...to arrive we had to go through some places that were higher than 4000 meters (12,000 feet), and I was starting to get a bad headache... I was also feeling a little woozy from the big slab of chorizo (pig skin?) I had the day before in Arequipa (recommended to me by a good Arequipeño friend). So I just took pictures of Lake Titicaca, chilled out for a while, and headed out that night to Cuzco.
MACHU PICCHU
After yet another overnight bus ride, this time to Cuzco, I met up with Mauricio and Ivan, the two Ecuadorian friends that I had met along the way. We spent the day walking around Cuzco and enjoying the sites, visiting old ruins, spending too much money on all the touristy stuff...
Then we went to Machu Picchu. It's a rather complicated process to arrive in Machu Picchu. The thing is, there's really only 1 way to arrive there, and that's by train. And the train company is a monopoly because it has the rights to the land where the tracks lie, and won't allow for a road to be built. And when you arrive you don't even arrive at the base of Machu Picchu, but rather the city at the bottom of the mountain called Aguas Calientes. From there you have to either walk or take a bus up to the base of Machu Picchu.
The three of us finally arrive in Aguas Calientes, with almost no money, hoping to use an ATM to get some cash to pay the $40 entrance fee. BAD IDEA TO RELY ON ATMS IN LATIN AMERICA. There was only 1 ATM in Aguas Calientes and it didn't work... So we piled all of our money from all currencies together and exchanged it for Soles, giving us just enough money to pay our entrance fees (this of course meant that we had no money for food, so we didn't really eat for lunch).
Yet we made it up to Machu Picchu, and WOW......an amazing city....I think pictures would be a better description right about now
After that it was just a quick 21 hour bus ride back to Lima through the thickest, windiest parts of the Andes mountains...then by plane back to Bogota.....
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