In Transit: Onward to Puno

The first American Transit casualty is the train from Cusco to Puno. We arrived to the station with tickets in hand only to find out the ¨tracks were broken." We later learn that this suspicously vague description means that the tracks have been shut down by a blockade of protesting teachers. We get our money back and I weep a little bit on the inside for my train to Puno.

We were more than ready to get out of Cusco, but all the passages to Puno are sold out. We resolve ourselves to take an expensive tourist bus that leaves the next morning. Oh, if we could only go back in time and book another bus. The trip was bad enough in itself: it was chalk full of upscale tourists (mostly Scandanavians, oddly enough) and what we didn´t realize was that the ticket included (not optional) a "tour" of sights on the way. Basically, this meant getting off and on the bus to buy trinkets, take pictures, and eat a buffet lunch.

After lunch, the bus takes a bumpy turn and the bus guide tells us that due to the teacher´s strike and blockade, the main route to Puno is inaccessable; we´ll have to take the mountain dirt roads instead. Now Jen and I had already thought that this bus tour seemed right out of the film Babel, but what happened next confirmed it. An angry and obviously terrified middle-age tourist rushed to the front screaming "this isn´t what I paid for!" and "stop this bus!"
He accussed the driver of just wanting to get out of paying to road tolls and said tha the roads were not safe for families. The bus pulled over and there was a tribunal as to whether to turn back a drive 4 hours to Cusco or forge on. Fortunately, the driver decided to ignore the tourist and we made it to Puno at midnight, a 9 hour trip passed over a lovely 16 hours.

In Puno, we got a room that was cleaned with a generous amount of carpet cleaner and tried to put the trip behind us. We happened upon a wedding with a great brass band.