Puno to Cuzco?

I made the title of this post a question, so as to not give away the ending before you get to the end of the post. If you remember correctly, the last time you were reading one of my posts, I was walking through the dark streets of Puno (Peru) as an illegal visitor on my way to the bus terminal to try to catch a bus to Cuzco. If we didn't catch one that night, we would have to spend the night in Puno and catch a bus in the morning. Because this was an 8 or 9 hour bus ride, we (my recently acquired Bolivian friend Germán) wanted to do it overnight so that we were in Cuzco early in the morning instead of in the evening. You can see Puno near the bottom of the map, near Lake Titicaca, and then Cuzco to the northwest of Puno. You may notice that this map says "Cusco." They are the same thing, just two different spellings.



We got to the bus station and went down the rows of ticket booths looking for a bus agency that had a bus going to Cuzco. It was late and the chances were slim. Despite the odds against us, we found one! It was the last bus going out that night. We were so relieved! They didn't take credit cards and we had no Peruvian money (soles), but fortunately there was an ATM machine. The bus was leaving with a few minutes of us arriving. We made sure they wouldn't leave without us, and only had one thing left to do before we got on the bus.

I hadn't gone to the bathroom in hours. We went down the terminal hall until we arrived at the bathroom. When we got there, there was a lady at the front of both bathrooms who was there to make sure that people paid in order to use the bathroom. I didn't happen to have any céntimos yet because the bus ticket purchase worked out in that way. I had bills, but no coins. No stores were open for me to break a bill, and so we had to go back to the bus agency counter. I don't remember why, but it seemed that for some reason we couldn't get change from them either, and so Germán asked them if they would just give us the one sol or whatever it was to get in because this had to happen. The people behind the counter thought that was real funny for some reason, and gave us what we needed.

We got into the bathroom, took care of business, and got on the bus. This bus was nicer than the last two, which wouldn't be difficult, but it was packed. It had the same kind of feel as the others. These weren't tourists, they were Peruvians just taking the bus from one point to the next. Germán and I found our seats and had a great time talking about all that had gone on and other things such as Boy Scouts (not sure how that came up), religion, Bolivia, the U.S., and so forth. We kept joking about how we were going to hear someone hanging out the door of the bus yelling "Cuzcooooo!!" like we had heard during that wonderful bus ride from Copacabana to Puno.

For all I know, this may have been the case. When we left, the bus was full. We eventually went to sleep, and I woke up with people sleeping in the aisle! I usually like the aisle seat because there is more leg room, but this was always based on the assumption that the aisle wouldn't have a huge Peruvian lady sleeping in it. And I mean huge. I was blocked in, with people on both sides, but was happy at least to be on the bus.

At about 7 am, we arrived in Cuzco. Things were great. The air was fresh, the sun was coming out, and we were just an uphill walk away from the Plaza de armas. We made it there, but it was a tough walk (see previous post about walking/running uphill at 12,500 feet with backpack!). Plaza de armas:

Too big/awesome to get in one picture. Germán waited there for his friends and I saw down on a bench to wait with him. Some guy tried to get us to buy some tourist package, which I found a little annoying. Just the tip of the iceberg. I heard a girl complaining about it on the bus from La Paz to Copacabana and thought she was ridiculous. She said Cuzco was cool, but way too touristy. Well, kind of true, and I realized this when I got there. But still amazing. I will be posting more about this next time or the time after.

Germán's friends came. He went one way with them, I went the other to find my place for the next few days. On my way, I told a police officer about my predicament with the border and passport stamp. She said it would be no problem, and that I could go to the immigration office after it opened. All of my problems seemed to be resolved, but oh was I wrong. Next post: the battle of the century with the Cuzco immigration officers.