Late night + bumpy bus ride = long day!

Explored Puno some more yesterday... It was National Police Day, and we turned the corner to get to the main square and saw a huge gathering of swat team police with their faces painted in camo and holding huge guns!! There were tanks lining the street and tons of people gathered around to watch the military parade... which included a police dog dressed as an officer! Then a few of us hired a taxi to take us to this famous boat docked at the port, except it turned out to be located in the middle of the poorest neighbourhood I have ever seen! In an uncharacteristic move for me, we decided that since it was getting dark and we were the only tourists in the only cab... we should head back to the hotel!! Sketchy! After dinner, we decided to check out a local disco in Puno.... which somehow (though not surprisingly) turned into an unofficial ¨Commonwealth Drinking Competition¨. Since I was the only Canadian and the only girl, I soon joined forces with the 2 English brothers on my trip and we took on the Aussies from another tour group. Not sure who won in the end, since we left to go to another bar after a few hours! Wake up call to catch the bus to Cuzco came promptly at 5:50 am... !! I got some breakfast in me and was doing exceptionally well compared to the British boys!

We piled onto a bus for a very long (8 hours total), extremely bumpy trek along semi paved roads. We added in a few cultural stops along the way for good measure: a pre-Incan temple site, a roadside market in the Plano Alto (high flat lands) of the Andes, and a very ornate and interesting church known as the ¨Sistine Chapel of the Americas¨ (and yes, you better believe I will be using that one in a future Jeopardy category!). At the place where we stopped for lunch there were a bunch of alpacas hanging around. I of course tried to get right close to one for a picture and it jumped up at lightning speed and charged at me (see pic of me jumping away from it!). They are really funny looking creatures, and the pure black ones are used only for sacrifices as they are considered to be the highest quality of the breed.

Health update: other than my (likely infected) hand, a small headache and a nosebleed, I am in excellent shape! A few of the other people on the trip have been pretty sick, so I guess all of the many many health tips I received and followed are paying off! (thanks Aunt Gale!).

Bathroom update: the worst I have ever encountered in my years of traveling... apparently when the Spanish conquered this region, they took all of the flushing toilets, toilet seats, toilet paper, and hand soap too! Yikes!

Tonight I have to pack an insanely small duffel bag that the porters will carry for me on the Inca Trail, along with a day pack that I will carry. We leave tomorrow morning for Ollanta, and then the following day.... the trek officially begins! I am excited to take on the trail, but have talked to some fellow tourists who have just finished it and I get the impression that we are in for a very hard few days! I wont be back from the trail until Wed night, so no posts for a while! I´ll send you all of the great pics from Machu Picchu upon my return to Cuzco (which is an incredibly beautiful city that I will tell you all about in later posts when I have had more time to explore.. aka shop.) Wish me luck on the trail!!