Day 49 – Cuzco - Puno

I left Cusco around 7.30 am to go toward the central terminal of the buses. Karina came with me to arrange some other tours, and after a brief goodbye I was already on my way. The journey this time was extremely pleasant. The bus was comfortable and displaying a couple of good movies. But the best part was the surroundings. The bus was basically crossing part of the Andes in an environment which somehow reminded me a lunar ambient and the Alps in Italy. It was great, also to get glimpses of the local people in such small houses in the middle of nowhere. Glimpses of their life which camera couldn’t capture. A mum breastfeeding her little Peruvian baby in the middle of this desolate land, sitting on the floor next to her little house while the man was planting few hundred metres away plants that I recognized to be maiz (corn). The bus was distant, but the only road crossing this desolate land and the mountains all around allowed me to capture glimpses of their everyday life. It was amazing. I will always remember these images. I reached Puno around 15.30 and Karina’s friend Caesar was waiting for me. He was a big man, definitely bigger for Peruvian standards and with a big illuminating smile. He, as many people here in South America, spoke a bit of Italian and was just waiting for the occasion to practice a little bit with me. As it always happen in these circumstances, we ended up talking what I refer as ITANISH, a mix of Italian and Spanish. I had the afternoon free and started mingling around the little town. I visited a small museum, but a little jewel in its kind: the museum of the Coca. Coca is considered almost a divine present from the Gods here in Peru, and the museum showed even more the strong link between the indigenous people and this amazing plant thanks to many panels full of pictures and explanations and interesting facts. I left the museum extremely hungry since I realized I didn’t really have lunch during the day. I stop at a good ‘polleria’ (chicken place) to get a super tasty grilled chicken with tomatoes and salad. Left the restaurant, I stopped to buy some stuff in the supermarket and finally back to the room of the hotel where I felt asleep around 11pm.