Arequipa to Puno Bus trip            

ihana.com - travels - peru 2000 - arequipa to puno

We left Arequipa early in the morning still feeling knackered from Colca, lack of sleep and an awful bus ride.  The next bus ride was to Puno, on the shores of Lake Titicaca which, at 3800m, is the highest navigable lake in the world.  This was also a bumpy journey to say the least but was compensated for by stunning scenery.

First really stunning scenery was a big salt lake which had flamingos in it. A few strange European guys left the bus at this point. Now we were the only gringos on the bus. A hideous old crone behind me thought it was really funny to say "Heeeyy, grrriingo, qué hora?" every 20 minutes and burst out laughing which made the trip even better....              

Some of the pictures are taken through the bus window as we only stopped at this lake and once for lunch in the middle of nowhere.  It smelt of piss even here!  We felt like we were on top of the world though.  The desert seemed endless with only the occasional llama herd to break up the view.

	At the stop in the middle of nowhere
	On the bus across the desert then past more lakes

We continued and eventually arrived in Puno at about 8pm after a total of 22 hours in buses since Colca.  We were feeling very pissed off and were a bit short with the taxi driver and hotel receptionist!  After a good nights sleep, despite the altitude and freezing cold, all was back to 'normal' the next day.  We got up to explore Puno.

All pictures copyright ihana.com 2000 unless otherwise stated.