Puno

Left Cusco on Wednesday morning to get the 8 hour bus ride to Puno at Lake Titicaca. About three hours into the trip the huge double decker bus hit a big rock on the road and it blew out the whole front tyre making a loud bang and smashed the drivers side window. Suddenly the bus was swerving all over the road and it felt totally out of control. We were right next a steep drop down to a river and as it happened i thought we were definitely going over the edge and into the river. It was really terrifying. After a few hundred metres of swerving the bus finally slowed down and stopped - much to everyone´s relief. We all got out for quite a while as they changed the tyre. Apart from that the bus trip was uneventful although it was a fascinating bus ride seeing parts of Peru we hadn´t seen yet. There were many many mud brick towns and eventually we began driving past massive snow-capped mountains. Puno is almost 4000m compared to Cusco at about 3300m, so we were gradually climbing much of the way.

I was prepared for Puno to be uninteresting as have been told by several sources but i was very pleasantly surprised so far to find that it is really interesting. It is set at the edge of the lake with moutains all around. The houses are all very incomplete looking but this makes for an interesting overview of the city from above. The lake view is great and the inner city area is full of character with a tourist element but at the same time a bustling local culture that you don´t see in Cusco as much.

Today i spent the day doing a lot of sight-seeing starting with a walk up one side of the city up to Kuntur Wasi lookout meaning ¨house of the condor¨. which is a large statue of condor overlooking the city and the lake. Stephen and me tried racing up the steps but at 4000m you soon realise that that is suicide so stoppped halfway out of breath and virtually crawled the rest of the way. Also walked down to the port area where you can look out over the lake and mountains beyond and the green algae bright green in the harbour area. After lunch at the bakery got a taxi up to the big Puma overlooking the city on the other side. The puma itslef wasnt much - like a big pineapple,. but a puma, but the walk back down was really cool as we walked about half an hour through the outer neighbourhoods where everything is really hodge podge including the steep dirt roads and incomplete houses.

Leaving first thing tomorrow to get the bus to Bolivia (Copacabana) for two dyas so we can renew our visas and see the sights.