Despite the
fact that we’d agreed to embark on our 5.5hr drive to Puno after a 06:55
breakfast, we were all wide awake by 05:00 thanks to a group of Chinese who must
have had an early start to their day and were obviously totally unaware of the
other 15 billion people living on this planet who’d like to have a bit of a lie-in.
Simon, like me, at one point toyed with the idea of simply opening the bedroom
door and let them know (in his birthday suit), that they could stop knocking
and banging on doors as we were all now awake!
Our anger
however was tempered by one of the most beautiful dawns across the most
stunning landscape I have ever seen – and these words are to be taken literally.
Where else can you pull back the curtains and be faced with a vista that
stretches +/- 80 miles before you to snow covered volcanoes, spewing steam into
an Azul blue cloudless sky. Basking in the morning rays of the sun beaming down
from behind, the foreground descends over 10,000ft through multiple habitats to
terraced slopes abutting the hotel, with the morning chorus of myriad birds
adding to this special moment in time.
With
breakfast out of the way and our bags packed and loaded, we were on our way by
07:45, first to drop off Christian in Chivay so he could take the bus back to
Arequipa, leaving us in the capable hands of Julio for our onward journey to
Puno. Quentin had intimated on several occasions that he’d like to see Andean
fox and deer up close, and evidently one antelope in particular was intent on complying
with this request ‘in extremus’ by colliding with our bus. Fortunately, it was
a glancing blow with injury averted, and we were able to watch him run off into
the hills surrounding Corporaque.
The rest of
our road trip took us back via the beautifully scenic Alto Plano in the Salinas
and Aguada Blanca national park, with
some more views of Misty, Chachani and Pichu Pichu, and large herds of Lamas,
Alcapas and wild Vacunas. We even chanced upon a **** (a type of chinchilla).
Following a quick pit stop, we veered left onto what is hailed as the most-deadly
road in Peru; the road to Puno and onwards to Bolivia. Julio did a fantastic job
of navigating his way through traffic, and averting the many jack-knifed
vehicles and other pile-ups. At 13:00 hrs we got our first glimpses of Lake
Titicaca and it wasn’t long after when we checked in to our hotel with rooms
affording views over the famous lake.
Lunch was
rather meagre (and stale) fare, but also afforded us the first real opportunity
in 3 days to log on to the interweb! The next two hours were spent feverishly
tapping away on keyboards and staring intently into very small screens with
squinting eyes. With lunch over and the backlog of e-mails, Facebook entries and
other computer interactions taken care of, the boys are now off into town to
find a place to exchange more money and hopefully find a decent restaurant,
leaving me behind to nurse my exceedingly blocked nose and sinuses, and
contemplate our adventures thus far behind closed eyes. Hopefully it’s just the
very dusty air causing this temporary setback and that it won’t turn in to a
fully blown Simonesque male flu……
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