Arrived in Puno, Peru

• Posted by: Geo Kearley
• Comments: 1

You know, transit days are usually boring and there´s nothing to really write about, however; not so in Peru…

Yesterday in Quito, we had a free day to just goof off before we caught our flight to Lima. We (our travel friends: Sue, John, Bob, Catherine, & Brian – Holly & Kimberly were to take a later flight) were all flying to Lima, and transferring to the same hotel. This is a simple concept – the reality once we hit the ground in Lima was not so simple… thus begins the comedy of errors that the last two days has been.

In the airport in Lima, we arranged for shuttle bus transportation to drop us all off at the hotel…mission accomplished. We all descended on the hotel desk and found that we did not have reservations at the hotel we had been instructed to meet at. Ok – we had the guy behind the desk call the local GAP representative & the phone was handed to me. The conversation went something like this: “Hi, I´m Shandy, and I´m just one of the local guides, so don´t yell at me okay?” No problem… Shandy sounded a lot like he´d just smoked one. He did guarantee us that GAP would have the hotel find cabs for us to take us to a different hotel that we had not been informed we were booked in, and in his opinion “I, like know that the hotel you´re standing in is nice, but I, like, think the one you´re going to is even nicer…” Great – we informed Shandy that there were two more people coming in on a later flight who were going to arrive at this hotel, which they were also not booked into – no problem, it would all be looked after.

The hotel flagged down a VW mini bus to take four of us to the proper hotel, and Brian, Catherine, George & I all got in with the understanding that the driver had been informed of where he was going, and he would return to pick up Sue, John & Bob. Were we mistaken. The “five minute ride” to the proper hotel turned into a 50 minute saga of misdirection, misunderstanding and hilarity. About 7 minutes into the ride it became apparent the driver had no idea where he was going, we were lost, and he did not know the name of the hotel we were going to. He made this apparent by turning around while he was driving into calamity traffic to ask us in Spanish the name of the hotel, and directions to it. None of us spoke Spanish, so this didn´t work out too well. He continued this pattern for about 10 minutes, then finally pulled over, phoned the hotel we had come from, asked the name of the hotel we were going to (didn´t ask the address or directions to it)then careening off into traffic again. I should mention here that the first time he called the hotel we started at, he referred to us as “les touristas” on the phone. By the time we had pulled over and asked complete strangers on the street for directions (several times – each time after which the driver got back in, muttering to himself in Spanish and getting more and more agitated)we took off again at an even more white-knuckle pace into traffic. By the time he made a second call to the hotel we started at he was referring to us as “los Gringos”…this couldn´t be good. Thankfully we arrived at the proper hotel (I´m sure it was completely by chance) soon after this. Needless to say Sue, John & Bob made it there before us. To top off this day, the hotel had George & I booked into separate rooms with different room mates, and they were pretty sure this should be okay with us… we got that straightened out.

We reminded the front desk of the potential plight of Kim & Holly who were coming in on a later flight before Catherine, Brian, George & I went out for a bite to eat before calling it an early night, as we had a 4:30 AM wake up call for our flight to Juliaca today. We had great fun imagining that Shandy would turn out to be our tour guide for Peru. Incidentally, we met our fantastic guide Simon at 4:30 AM when we found out that Kim & Holly suffered a similar hotel ordeal when they arrived on a later flight. Holly was mistakenly bunked with Bob, Kim was bunked with a new room mate (Jackie), and they eventually ended up sharing a bed head-to-foot.

After three flights to get to Puno, we arrived and found our great hotel (no problems). They served us all coca tea to help us get used to the altitude (Puno is 3825 m above sea level). What the heck? None of us are competing in the Olympics – we don´t have to pass any random tests. Oh yeah – we saw Paruguay´s national football team in the airport this morning as we were checking in. Lima is hosting the Americas Cup for soccer this month. It was pretty exciting to see them – and they wanted to be noticed.

Puno seems much more personable than Lima. Lima has a population of 8 million, and it seems like everyone lives in a walled compound. The walls don´t seem like modesty walls, like in a Chinese hutong or a Moroccan riad, these walls seem like they are there to keep out undesirables. It makes the population seem a bit under siege. Puno has a very colourful indigenous population, and it was fun to see them in the markets today while Simon explained the variety of food on offer for sale there (did you know that there are over 200 kinds of potatoes here?) and we attempted talking to some of the market vendors in broken Spanish, English and mime. It was great fun. On the way back to the hotel, we took penny cabs (the tents on a little trailer attached to mopeds). We attracted a lot of attention from a little boy´s soccer team who were very excited to have George take their picture with the digital camera and show it to them.

We have to head back to the hotel for supper soon. By the way, we promised to say “Hi” to Kim´s mom here…”Hi mom”.

As always, we miss our families, friends and doggies. Thanks to everyone who let us know how things are at home.

Noel & George

Post Information

Date posted :	Jul 20, 2004
Last modified :	Dec 20, 2007
Categories :	Peru, South America
Tags :	Lima, Peru, Puno, Quito