Day 36 - 40, Tacna, Arequipa and Cuzco

The border crossing into Peru's border town of Tacna was uneventful, and we headed straight away to one of the many bus stations to buy our bus ticket to Puno in Lake Titicaca, as our intention was to make our way north as soon as possible. We then went to a seafood restaurant reccommended by Antonietta. "Mar Adentro" was closed, but the place next door was open for business and as they shared a menu we went in and experienced the first of many delicious meals of the well-known Peruvian cuisine. A proper ceviche and pulpo al olivo was in order, together with a real Peruvian pisco sour.

Well-fed, we headed out to catch our night bus. An interesting three hours followed. First, we heard that there were strikes in Puno, so many buses weren't going. Second, we were told that our original bus wasn't going, but we had been transferred onto another bus instead. That bus proved to be a really nice one (royal class), which indeed left the station. The bus had huge comfortable armchairs, and we were likely the only non-peruvians on it. There were several indiginous ladies travelling next to us, carrying more stuff than one can imagine possible: food, chinese alarm clocks for sale, a couple of kids, and countless wool blankets. They all seemed very restless, going up and down the aisle, speaking Aymara, seemingly getting ready for the long journey ahead.

Unfortunately, the journey was not to be. After arriving in the second Tacna station, the bus stopped, and although nobody gave us any information we deduced we had to get off. We suspected the strikes in Puno as well as road-blocks, but another theory was that the police had stopped our bus and one of the shift-drivers did not have a licence. Either way, we certainly were not heading to Puno, so we got our money back and a friendly lady called us a taxi to take us to a hotel in town. There we watched the news, and realized the situation was a lot worse in Puno than we had imagined, with 5 people dead and loads of disturbances in the surrounding area. Maybe not such a bad thing after all that we didn't leave that evening.

We took a bus to the city of Arequipa the next day which was also quite comfortable and sported a bingo game for good measure. In Arequipa we continued our food quest and had some excellent dinner to conclude the day. The next day was reserved for sightseeing. Arequipa lies in a valley surrounded by huge volcanoes, which makes for a pretty impressive backdrop. The highlights of our sightseeing activity was the convent of Santa Catalina though, a 400 year old areal which covers a full city block. Both history and the actual place were fascinating and well worth the visit. Speaking of fascinating, we also visited the museum of "Inca maiden Juanita", a mummy found on a 6000m high mountain top in the direct vicinity of Arequipa. Very well done and very informative!

Juanita gave the start to our own Inca period, which had only one natural place to be continued: Cuzco, birthplace and long term capital of the Inca empire. An uneventful night bus took us there and we quickly realized that we had made it back to nearly 3300m above sea level as the steep streets and steps literally took our breath away. Our first day was slow as a result, but at least we managed to organise everything for the upcoming trip to Machu Picchu. Day 2 was much more active as we trawled the city and its surroundings for insights into both its Inca and colonial history. Convent, cathedral, the Inca ruins of Sacsaywaman were the highlights and we also managed to go shopping. And last but not least, we also sampled the Cuzco style of Peruvian food, which turned out to be as good as any we had tried so far.