We arrived in Puno 5-30am the-day-before-yesterday absolutely frozen. It can be freezing here at night and my kathmandu fleece just ain´t cutting it! We were fortunate enough to have a good hostel recommended to us on the bus so we didnt have to waste time bargain hunting.
Puno feels so much better than Cusco because you can walk around relatively unnoticed. Note the emphasis on ¨relatively¨.
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We slept most of the first morning in our very small hostel room (where the curtains actually matched the dooner covers) and were rudely awoken by the market vendors trading outside our building. So we got up and decided that we really should make an effort of exploring this little town. But first we had to eat - and what a challenge that proved to be! It took ages to find a place we could both agree on (due to Haley´s digestive demands and my sleepiness) and then we had to wait another half an hour until the chef turned up. But we had a great meal. I tried llama (delicious!) and Haley had the best pizza ever!
We were way too tired to try any kind of walking tour of Puno so we jumped on this carriage thing that a man pushes like a bicycle. It was so much fun and we had an excellent tour of the crazy streets, the noisy and colourful markets, the bumpy train tracks, the residential areas with kids playing on the streets, the football stadium etc. It was excellent and we even let the guy rip us off as he had to wheel the both of us around for half an hour!
At night we went shopping and bought these beautiful poncho tops (which Haley ´fashion police´ McEwen refused to wear with me later). While we were at the internet cafe we heard a very noisy demonstration outside and lots of chanting and police shouting as well. Wish I had my camera!
Went to bed feeling very happy after a very economical dinner and very economical cuba libres.
Posted by Tanya at May 20, 2005 11:17 PM