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Catching my head as it suddenly dropped from exhaustion, I continued counting down the minutes until the arrival of my night bus to the lakeside town of Puno. Before leaving Cusco, I had set up a two day excursion on Lake Titicaca; where I would visit three of the islands and stay over night with a local family. Everything was sort of running on schedule to get me there in time to make my 8am boat departure. The night had kicked off to a rough start when the bus company had double booked nearly 20 seats and attempted to pull away with angry customers running beside and in front of the vehicle. Lucky for me, I had arrived really early and insured my spot. The rest of the night went rather smoothly; well except for the bitter cold that filled the cabin and had turned the condensation on the windows to ice. Then as morning neared (5am), the bus suddenly came to a halt (only 10km outside of Puno). We soon discovered that the road between us and the town had been completely blocked off by angry civilians who were holding a demonstration.

Life on the Reeds; and on the Rocks!

Jeremy Curl
2006-08-28 12:03:07

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Catching my head as it suddenly dropped from exhaustion, I continued counting down the minutes until the arrival of my night bus to the lakeside town of Puno. Before leaving Cusco, I had set up a two day excursion on Lake Titicaca; where I would visit three of the islands and stay over night with a local family. Everything was sort of running on schedule to get me there in time to make my 8am boat departure. The night had kicked off to a rough start when the bus company had double booked nearly 20 seats and attempted to pull away with angry customers running beside and in front of the vehicle. Lucky for me, I had arrived really early and insured my spot. The rest of the night went rather smoothly; well except for the bitter cold that filled the cabin and had turned the condensation on the windows to ice. Then as morning neared (5am), the bus suddenly came to a halt (only 10km outside of Puno). We soon discovered that the road between us and the town had been completely blocked off by angry civilians who were holding a demonstration. The stretch of road in front of us
was completely covered in boulders, glass, angry locals, and spot fires for up to a mile. There was no getting through the blockade. I turned to those around me and asked them what had angered these people to the point where they would block off the access to their city and shut down the border. The response I got was not what I wanted to hear. It seems that the people of Puno and probably most of Peru, are angry and revolting because the Peruvian government is signing the NAFTA agreement with the United States - Greatttt!!!!! Being that I was the only American on board, I quickly started practicing my Australian accent; which is totally horrible. The entire bus sat there for the next hour like ice cubes in a freezer tray. Our bus driver had gone to speak to the mob and later returned to us with somewhat of good news. The gringo passengers would not be lined up and shot; so that ...