The next part of this trip was moving south. Train back to Cuzco, night in our Palace, little llama in the courtyard and next day off to Puno. I knew this was a train across the country but didn’t realize until that night that it is an 11 hours of train – yep. I think pretty much everyone stared at me as if I were growing horns when I said it. And it is not a sleeper one – but fortunately it leaves at 7 am, crosses the country and we are there at 6 pm – and we will see everything in between – mountains, rivers, llamas and llamas and mountains, you name it. I hope future readers can feel the enthusiasm with which I tried to sell it.

Titicaca train was 5 star, felt like Orient Express – service with tuxedos, walk in to our seats, menu a la carte, steak dinner, air conditioned, snacks, drinks. I mean it was gorgeous. But 11 hours of it was a little too much – b/c it had one minor flaw – it had no wifi. I think it was partially on purpose so people can relax and enjoy the scenery and partially b/c how the hell would you get it in the middle of desert. Overall, well done Peru Rail – Titicaca. We stopped at the highest spot one way and we could all feel it and learned to appreciate the abundance of oxygen.

By hour 6, we were restless. There was a view platform and train cart with bar, so hung out there for a little – just watched the nature. That got old after an hour as it was a bit of a dry nothing – with lots of very well camouflaged llamas, alpacas and all those (unseparable in my view) animals. Another shaman creature, fashion shows. It got a bit more interesting when we were going through towns as there was a lot of local attention and waving and screaming. It appeared as train going by is the only distraction in some of these places, in general very poor, rural, agricultural only. As we were approaching Puno, miles and miles of both sides of the trains became markets, people selling absolutely everything – from animals to tires to food, pieces of plastic, metal, dirt…. we later found out that the black market is incredibly alive here as most of the goods come cheap from Bolivia and is resold here. The staff was amazing, working the entire time, no clue how they kept all the glass and china dishes together on the moving train.

We made it to Puno and I got lots of questions on how are we getting back up north – wonder why? In all seriousness, I think it was an amazing one-time experience – and they all agreed eventually. Immediately, we could feel the lack of oxygen – yes, even more than Cuzco. We got into our hotel Casa Andina and it was dark and unexpectedly cold. Walking up to the first floor rooms was oxygen noticeable. In the am, when we could see something, we realized that were were on the lake directly – away from the town but was told we are not missing anything at all. Off to bed as we only had a day here.