Mon, 31 Mar 2008 23:00:11 +0000
Andean Explorer Index A Long Day
The only reason I'm spending another day in Puno is because of the Machu Picchu debacle, so I had nothing in particular to do today. Also, it's Sunday, so what few attractions there are here are closed. So I was pretty slack.
The single achievement of the morning was booking my bus ticket out. After the horror of the previous Puno to Cuzco journey, I was determined to spend a little more. Unfortunately I misheard "15" as "50", with the result that I'm actually booked on an even cheaper bus than last time. Pray for me.
For the afternoon, I decided to experiment with mapping Puno with GPS. Neither Google maps nor openstreetmap.org show anything for Puno except a dot. So for the benefit of the next tourist to turn up with an N810, I thought I'd map out some of the major streets, so that they don't emerge from the bus station utterly bewildered like I did. I haven't yet figured out how to upload the data to openstreetmap.org, but hopefully this will work.
I also figured out an interim solution to get my photos into the blog, involving sacrificing the card that was holding the backup of all the data on my PDA. So it would be a good idea not to lose it right now. As soon as a question I posted on the internet gets answered, I should be able to rig up something more robust.
I then spent a couple of hours on the internet. It's not looking good for organising a last-minute trip to the Pantanal. I sent off an email to one company. If that doesn't work out, I might pay a visit to Paraguay. Just for the hell of it.
Around five thirty I went to get an alpaca meal. As before, I was way early. But this time the food arrived in a reasonable period of time. I ordered chicharron de alpaca with pure de papa. It was utterly delicious. A bit tough perhaps, but crispy fried and loaded with spices and salt. And what the hell, a glass of the house red, which was also delicious. So I also splashed out on a pancake desert. Undoubtedly one of the best meals I've had so far, even if the photo doesn't make it look all that appealing.
So now I'm hanging around in the bus station waiting for my bus. I'm starting to get sick of the ticket sellers' continual cry of "Arequiparequiparequiparequiparequipaaaaa!", which seems to follow me all over Peru. I'm not sure if the volume of tickets for Arequipa means that everyone wants to go there, or no-one. I sure don't.