Travel to Puno

South America Day 18

 

We were glad to be leaving Cuzco at long last. Our group was back together with the Jungle folk arriving the previous afternoon. We had exhausted the interest value of Cuzco some time ago.
The afternoon before, I'd started to come down with some kind of cold/flu to add to the eye problem and the shoulder problem. I was starting to think South America was going to be the death of me.
On our way out of town we passed by the Monumento a Pachacútec.

It's supposedly a statue of the Inca ruler when the empire was crushed by the Europeans. The reality is that the ruler was probably a woman, but the Catholics decided to bend the truth a little.

The Next Leg.

Shown in blue, you can see the ground we've covered by this point in the trip. We're nearly at the end of the Peru leg of the journey.
The red section is the day bus trip we endured today. 6 hours seemed like nothing at the time, but the bus had uncomfortable seats and dodgy air conditioning. It was far from fun.

 

Nevado Cunurana.

This was the high point (summit) on our 6 hour journey and about half way. By the time were reached it we'd already had enough of the bus. There were some nice snow capped peaks to look at but we really didn't want to get back on the bus.

Puno

 

We arrived in Puno late in the afternoon and were very glad to be off the bus. The only brief highlight for me during the second half was seeing a couple of flocks of flamingos just outside of Juliacca. It was a brief look and being that we were on a public bus, there was no chance of stopping. No doubt we'll see more flamingos when we visit the desert in a few days.