Day 9: Night bus to Titicaca lake

Our initial plan was to catch an early bus to Puno, the gateway to Titicaca lake, but we put it off for the evening because of an incident with Gina's camera. We decided to take it easy and enjoy our last day in Cusco, our home for one week.

 

We got our bus tickets in a travel agency, which we could have gotten cheaper if we had found the bus station, but we felt lazy that day (still cheap anyway) and went to explore a huge local market on the outskirts of town. The locals used this mostly outdoor market to shop for fresh food, clothing, household goods and many other things; it was not geared to tourists. There was a glut of many types and colors of fruit and vegetables (many of them unfamiliar to us), including potatoes (there are several thousand types of potatoes in Peru), and other goods along the aisles. Not so appealing was the meat section, where there were whole carcasses of meat exposed surrounded by flies, and even animals' heads (we wondered what they would use them for...), and the smell was revolting. Such a Dantesque picture! We were tempted to try the ceviche (a very typical Peruvian dish consisting basically of chopped raw fish in lemon juice) in one of the food stands, but we were suspicious.

 

 

 

 

 

We went back to our hostel and decided to stay in the rest of the day until it was time to leave to the bus station (it was cold and rainy as well). We just took our clothes to a laundry service nearby, where we were told it would take around 2 hours to wash and dry them (but it took 4 and a half hours, and our clothes weren't dry through when they were returned to us at our hostel).

 

While waiting, we tried one of those

At 10 pm, we were ready at the crowded bus station. A seven-hour trip and new places and adventures awaited us. Alhough the bus was very comfy (with broad reclining seats), we knew we wouldn't sleep too much, but we didn't care. We were so excited! We were about to leave the wonderful Sacred Valley and beatiful Andes and head for a higher spot, to the highest lake in the world (would the altitude sickness affect us this time?). One curiosity: the bus driver (or someone else) video recorded all passengers' faces with a camera before the bus departed the station. Weird security measure.

 

Bye, bye Cusco...