After a few days of hiking, the Inka Express tourist bus was an enjoyable way to travel to our next destination and rest our legs. The coach was spacious and had an animated English speaking guide. Lunch and snacks were included. I liked the sweet spicy loaf of bread and coca tea we were offered early on. We departed on the coach at about 7am in Cuzco and arrived in Puno punctually at 5pm.
Along the way, we had several stops to stretch our legs and see small villages.
Andahuaylillas: We visited a pretty church that showcased the fusion of ideas between traditional religion and Catholicism, now the dominant religion in Peru. In the conversion process, various symbols were fused. For example, Mary’s dress symbolised the spiritual mountain and the mirrors symbolised water. This reconciled local peoples’ worship of the natural world with the foreign traditions of the Catholic church. I spent some time stretching my achey legs outside!
Inka bridge: Shaky!
Raqchi: We stopped at some ruins that were roughly 600 years old and survived earthquakes due to the trapeze shape used (this strong trapeze shape is a recurring theme in Inka architecture as we learnt at Machu Picchu!) The scenery reminded me of the Italian countryside.
Marangani: Lunch stop with a buffet… decent broccoli garlic pasta.
La Raya: Mountainous and windy desert scenery with some stalls selling pretty alpaca goods. Unfortunately, I felt I needed to save space in “the beast” of a backpack/roller luggage of mine until I could offload some things.
Pukara: Pre Inca civilisation site with a small museum. Iglesia Santa Isabel was a colonial style church. We also saw lots of examples of clay Pukara bulls that are displayed to protect family, wealth and so on.
Puno: We arrived in daylight and took a scenic 20 minute taxi ride to our hotel on Lake Titicaca, Taypikalo Lago. We saw locals farming by the lakeside on the way. The hotel itself had great lake views and there was a fire burning in the distance.
Overall, it was a good way to travel and worth USD 50. This was luxury compared to our next bus journey from Puno to La Paz on a bus that cost 40 soles (£10)!
Our guide was quite a politician giving a speech on how Peru has natural resources, tourism, exports such as silver and copper, but large social inequality and a lack of education. Most rural children have work to support their families rather than go to school full time. Given how passionate our guide was about changing the system, I expect he might be running for local office.
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