Great Train Journey

Today we travelled from Cuzco to Puno on the train which apparently one of the great train journeys of the world. The section we were in had large armchairs instead of normal seats and at the back was a bar and open air observation car it was pretty cool.

It started off in typical fashion the clown in the hostel hadn´t got breakfast ready, so when it did arrive we had to rush our tea and bread rolls. At the station this woman snootily commented that Piper & Darcey wouldn´t be able to sit still for the 10 hours the train took. Much to my delight she had to pass our seats every time she wanted to go to the observation bar.


The train was real luxury and we had waiter service the entire time, we had free whisky sours in the bar and there was a fashion parade by these two models in skin tight catsuits, and our poor waiter got dragged in as well, but he didn´t seem to be able to take it seriously.

The only problem was there was 20 french tourists in our carriage and a particularly old biddy across from us who didn´t shut up the whole gabbing away and generally bitching the way they do when the door was opened. They were even worse at the observation car pushing and elbowing their stinking way to the best spots. Complete tossers all of them.

The train stopped at the worlds highest train station were we all got off and had a wander round, another chance to be sold Alpca produced goods. The two models got off here to catch the bus back to Cuzco. Up until now we had been following the river through a mountainous valleys, but after this point we were onto a high plateau with more mountains and large hills in the distance. Mile after mile after mile, it did get a bit monotonous after a while.


The next real highlight for me was Julica, described as driving through Albert Looms scrapyard and not wrong. As we entered Julica a market was taking place directly beside the railway line and some stall holders had actually placed goods between the railway lines, crazy. Anything and everything seemed to be for sale at the market and you could reach out grab some of the stuff as the stalls were that close. It would be interesting to see there kinematic gauge.

Before we finally arrived at Puno we had to make a special stop at some grand hotel outside of town to let all the french off. You could see the short stroll to reception for them. I say again they are all tossers.

When we arrived at Puno it was absolutely bedlam outside, taxis, buses and bicycle rickshaws, apparently this is the first time the train has ran in 20 days.