MP to Cusco and on to Puno

After our second night in Machu Picchu Pueblo (sometimes called Aguas Calientes in material) we boarded the same train that Becky used to return to Cusco, or in our case to Ollantaytambo where a bus connection took us back to the city.

It is a longer trip than you expect, around 3 hours, and it wasn't made any more enjoyable by the fact that Peru Rail turns the train ride into a fashion show with music to try and convince us to buy more Alpaca clothing! This was a bizarre situation where they tried to convince passengers to get up and dance and parade the clothes too. Best to just look out the window at the view and not catch their attention.

We got back to Cusco at 7.30pm, back to the same hotel, and immediately went back to the Museo del Pisco on the corner near us to try one or two more of their cocktails and their tapas menu. Both were excellent and continued the high quality food experience we have had when eating in Cusco.

Our waitress was both bilingual and witty when she explained that the more cocktails a customer has, the better their Spanish gets!

However, we didn't need too many as we were again up before the sun to catch our 10 hour bus ride from Cusco to Puno. None of us relished this thought, but it turned out to be OK because they stopped several times for scenic spots and lunch and this combined well with the opportunity to claim a couple of missing hours of sleep.

Rural housing is modest, but usually complete and well maintained, which I say because most housing in the cities and large towns look awful, usually in an unfinished state. We speculated that this ridiculous situation must relate to a tax incentive and our bus tour guide confirmed this for us. The problem is chronic in my view and displays very weak government policy behaviour along with very poor town planning, if they have local government structures too.

You can easily spot the tax free organisations by their completed buildings, witness churches, government buildings, sports structures and possibly the rural business sector. This tax distortion is a mad situation for Peru in my view.

We have arrived in Puno, which, like Juliaca city that we travelled through, looks 'interesting' to review, but wouldn't appeal to most of you as places to stay long. We are staying one night (done) and now head out to Isla Suasi (on lake Titicaca) for two sleeps before beginning our journeys home.

Katie travels on from Lima, once we get there, but Ron and I must wait in Santiago two more days for our connecting flights to NZ. I would be surprised if we have wifi on the island, so if not I'll load any new images or comments in the days ahead.