Arequipa was a place Robbie the Rob and I had become pretty comfortable with. The scenery, the food, the ladies it had a real comfort zone about it that meant we spent a few more days here than we had planned to. But the our travel itinary was pushing us further south to Puno and Lake Titicaca.

Persisting on our method of night bus downtime and ignoring the war stories of dodgy coach crashes we cruised out of Arequipa with regret at 11PM

Flying out of the city at speed in the Peruvian night the temperature was dipping. Arequipa was cold but it was getting colder. Rob and I have been struggling with this whole cold at night warm in the day thing since we got here. But Puno was bitterly cold.

We arrived in Puno in the dead of the night, 3AM to be exact. Puno was an ugly ghost town at night, no life and no sound. Quite a scary place to be dropped off by a night bus. We clenched onto the light of the coach station as we tried to find refuge. A local taxi driver drove us from place to place in our lonely planet book as we woke up sleepy night watchmen all telling us they were full up. We finally get a room at Hotel Italia the local Italian separatist joint. Expensive with no heating we freeze ourselves to sleep with CNN in the background gently reminding me why America is doing such an awesome job in Afghanistan in its fight on the War on Terror and its global fight to preserve freedom and democracy the world over.

Puno is going to be short lived and we will be heading straight to the lake tomorrow.