Ciarán & Elaine's Travelog

Friday, October 07, 2005

Journey into Peru

Our 12 hour bus journey began at 7.30am but didn´t end until 11.30pm. Twelve and Sixteen hours all seem to be the same thing to the people in the bus company.

The roads leaving La Paz are absoloutely crazy. I don´t know how they even call them roads. They´re no more than dirt tracks covered in loose shale and rocks. The coach (which is about 50 years old) bumped it´s way through for about 2 hours before we even started to see anything resembling a decent road.

A lot of the time the view was of the altiplano with the snow capped Andes in the background. The local farmers still farming with such old methods, things that we had learned in history that Irish farmers used about 200 years ago. I lost count of the number of starving cows I saw pulling along old style ploughs. Llamas and Alpacas everywhere too.

We crossed over the Bolivian/Peru border which was a bit of an adventure itself with thousands of people rushing everywhere and so many police checking every last bit of documentation at least three times...

Finally we reach Peru and drive around the shores of Lake Titicaca (for about 4 hours). This lake has to be seen to be believed. It´s so beautiful and soooo big, it seems like you´re looking at a very calm sea as the blue of the water fades into the horizon.

Lucky we had a good view cause the bus broke down twice once with a huge blowout and then later the suspension went.

By 10pm we were completely starving and bursting for the bathroom. We were in the middle of nowhere so the next village we got to the bus driver had to stop at the police station to ask them if we could use the toilet.

We eventually reached Cusco at about 11.30. Checked into our hostel and had a much needed sleep.

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