Most of today was spent in transit on a bus between Cusoc and Puno. We had only two stops in a six and a half hour bus ride. The first stop was at La Raya Pass which is 4,321 metres and the highest point we have been to so far. There is not much there except some toliets (50 centimos) and locals selling “shit with llamas on it”. The 50c gives you a few piece of toilet paper and the man comes with a bucket of water to flush for you when you are finished. In most South American countries the sewer can only handle things that you have eaten first, so toilet paper is put in the bin next to the toilet.

Our next step was Juliaca, just to drop off some passengers. The town is a dump, but we have to return here to catch a plane to Lima. The bus broke down just outside Juliaca. Well not so much broke down, but one of the engine pipes got a hole in it. A little bandage seemed to fix it.

Soon we were in Puno, which is a bit of a dump of a city. It is on the shores of Lake Titicaca which is the highest navigable lake in the world. The town has a lot of unfinished houses. They mostly have one storey with a few support columns and reinforcing steel sticking out of the top. This is apparently because the owneers don’t pay taxes (land tax and rates presumably) until the house is complete. As a result the place looks totally crap. This applies to many Peruvian cities we have seen. Read the rest of this entry »