South America Part 10 - Arequipa and Puno, Peru

Alleluhah– we finally got a day to lounge around in bed and not get up at 6 in the morning… Double alleluhah that we were both recovering from our bad bouts of gastro and we could finally eat some food.

Having a 1pm flight to Juliaca (then a shortish bus trip to Puno – aka town on Lake Titicaca), we both wanted to explore Arequipa more.

Taking Lonely Planets advice in heed – we both set off to the Monasterio de Santa Catalina – a whole city block´s worth of a nun monastery. It was definitely worth the 25 soles admission – and it was almost empty of tourists. It was very beautiful and serene – very much in the Spanish missionary style. There were a couple of exhibitions and galleries. One of the exhibitions showed how old nuns used to wear barb-wire outfits if they had sinned (sounds m&m). Even though there are still practising nuns there – they open up sections of it to tourists everyday. We can vouch for this – we saw a nun hanging out washing on the top of a building. The place looked like it had come straight out of a J-Lo video.

Our flight to Juliaca was early yet again. LAN appear like they continually run early – so our advice is for fellow passengers is to get there early. (I HATE QANTAS!)

On arrival at Juliaca – there were touts offering us 60 sole taxis to Puno – but we managed to get a mini van for 10 soles each (yes!). We even managed to convince a Dutchman not to take the taxi (he claimed he had bargained it down to 55 soles) and take the minivan instead.

We got dropped off at Hotel Basla Inn (we tend to think that the use of both hotel AND inn is kind of redundant…. Also – isn´t Balsa that cheap breakable wood?). The place was OK – but didn´t have the excellent range of TV channels Cusco and Arequipa had. Also – the Peruvians seem obsessed with having bathroom mats (not linen but those plastic mats). Hotel Basla Inn had not one but two plastic bathroom mats – one for the shower (?) and one for near the toilet… It is sort of like a hotel blanket that doesn’t get washed – but it lives near the toilet… Another thing too was the really bad spanlish in the “Hotel Regulations” – but I don´t have it with me (checked in the luggage to Buenos Aires – I´m becoming slow at writing these things) – and I promise I will come back to the bad spanglish in another post.

The town of Puno is also quite scenic (but not at the same level as Arequipa or Cusco). Puno had the compulsory town square with cathedral and a “tout street”. There was about 10 pizza restaurants in a row on tout street – each with their hardcore tout ready to arm tourists with crappy flyers. We managed to track down the Machu Pizza Restaurant (…we have BEEN to Machu PIZZA!) which was situated off tout street. Surprisingly it was full people (strange for any Peruvian restaurant) – most of locals (great sign!). And the pizza wasn’t half bad either for Peru!