Today we finally broke free of the gravitational pull of Cusco, and boarded a cushy double-decker bus for the 6 hours to Puno, high up on the altiplano. It was a fairly uneventful ride with the majority of other passengers being gringos like us, but all that changed when we hopped off in Puno which was hosting the largest and most frantic festival in Peru for the year – the Virgen de Candelaria. The streets were crushed and the sun beat down on us as we vainly struggled to make sense of where we were and what was going on, directions from drunken businessmen enjoying the carnival atmosphere only serving to confuse us further.
After some aborted attempts to do the “independent traveller” thing and find some cheap accommodation, we settled for something near the bus station, dumped our gear and headed out into the mayhem. It was an interesting evening, punctuated by loud brass bands, legions of colourfully-costumed locals parading through the centre of town, and thousands of domestic tourists boosting the population.
Brass bands abound during Candelaria in Puno
We surmised that, in a culture where drinking is not widespread, when it does happen it happens to excess, and after the dark thousands of casualties emerged, staggering and senseless (and sometimes with children in tow!). The rain inevitably began to pour and we fought our way back through the crush to our hotel and a very compromised night’s sleep as the partying continued outside.
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