Passing thru Puno

April 10, 2019

So while the fate of my digital existence sits with the Google judge and jury, I decided to get on the move to keep myself busy and start making the trek to Bolivia. Since Peru had pretty seriously pissed me off, Bolivia seemed like a land of new hope. I know, doesn’t say a whole lot, but it was all I had at the time.

In Peru (as well as Ecuador) some creative Europeans created a cool tourist bus system called Peru Hop. It is basically a hop-on hop-off tour bus like you’ve seen in cities (NY, SF, etc) but here it covers the whole country, not just a city. For a small premium over the local buses, you get a safe bus with a tour guide and a lot less headache. Peru Hop also makes its last stop in La Paz, Bolivia and helps you with the border process. I was sold. I packed up my stuff and headed out of Cusco. Destination – Arequipa, Peru.

Now you’ll notice from the pictures below there are none of Arequipa. Here’s why.

After a 10 hour overnight bus ride to Arequipa, along the way I found out that the Peru Hop busses were sold out for the next few days for the stops I needed on the dates I needed. I needed to be in La Paz by April 14th and the way Peru Hop’s schedule works I wasn’t going to make it there in time, unless I made a game time decision to skip Arequipa and keep going to Puno. About 20 emails later with the Peru Hop team (who were fabulous) via my $10USD Peruvian SIM card, when I arrived to Arequipa there was a no show on the bus to Puno and I was off on another 6 hour bus ride. The funny in this is if I’d known ahead of time that the buses were at capacity I could have gone straight to Puno from Cusco in a couple of hours during the day and skipped the overnight experience, but then of course I wouldn’t have the travel tales to tell. So that’s how I got to Puno.

And this is Puno, Peru. A little worn around the edges, Puno is the Peruvian gateway to the famous Lake Titicaca (stop laughing – I know you made jokes about this when you were in 5th grade). And also where hot water in your hotel is more important than Wifi.

I stayed at the Hotel Suites Independencia, on of Peru Hop’s recommended hotels – and I did have hot water.

Enjoy the pics.