Strangest.Bus Ride. EVER...ending in what Nat calls paradise

Yesterday we left the ice box which was Puno to travel to Arequipa. We had paid the man at our hostel 25 soles each to book us bus tickets...25 soles is about $7 for a six hour bus ride...we should have known what we were getting into.
We awoke at 6:30 am and crawled out from under our two wool blankets. We could see our breath in our bathroom as we packed our backpacks and got ready to hit the road.

Our bus ride was funny at first- crazy bus driver who passed everything and everything on the road at warp speep, waiting two hours in Juliaca while they tried to fill the seats, and women with bags of popcorn, cheesy potatos, and gelletina (jello) screaming a cacaphony of food into the door of the bus. We watched the women for quite a while mesmerized by the fact that they were so persistent as to wait by the door, completely silent, then all in unison wailing their wares at us.
Then we had to switch seats...the bliss of first class (and the first floor of the bus) became the terror of having our feet resting against the cracked windshield of the front of the bus (we were in the first row of the second floor of the bus). The view was beautiful, but hard to enjoy as we watched as our bus driver tried to pass cars, bikers, trucks, and other buses on the winding road. To our right a steep drop off seemed all to near...good thing the bus was severly tilted to the left the whole ride. Lia found is especially hard to enjoy the ride...she had to use the restroom, but unfortunately for her the bus didn´t have one. So she had to make do when the bus pulled over to the side of the road near some bolders which were to serve as the restroom for the 50 people on the bus who piled off and popped a squat. Lia tried to hide, but she was found by a peruvian man looking for a similar hiding place...hopefully he found a better one than Lia.

Six hours later and greatful they had survived las tres professoras got off the bus in Arequipa found a taxi and took it to The Andes B&B...aka PARADISE. WARM WATER!!!(something our ice box in Puno was missing), comfy beds, and a beautiful roof top terrace with views of the surrounding mountains and volcanos. Dinner and sleep followed.

Today we woke up without an alarm clock, ate a long breakfast, and talked to other travelers. Natalie unwilling to leave the comfort of the beds returned to the room to sleep while Lia and Lorna headed off to explore. Lia and Lorna went to the Santa Catalina Monastary, a convent bulit in the 1500s out of the beautiful white stone Sillar. This place was beautiful. It was like a city. Vibrant colored walls and sunny courtyards filled the monastary, Lia and Lorna felt like they were in a small town in Mexico and spent two and a half hours wandering.

The rest of the day was filled with shopping for jewerly and sipping on a roof top terrace. Now we are off to see the Incan Museum which houses the mumified remains of a fourteen year old girl who was an Incan sacrafice to the gods.

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