Strikes causing strife

After breakfast at our hotel this morning we were picked up by a girl from the office where we bought our bus tickets to Puno, and taken to the bus station with her in a taxi. Our bus was meant to leave at 8:30, but by 8:45 the girl assured us that it was just waiting for another bus to depart so it could park in the designated bay. Just before 9:00, she explained that our bus had been cancelled because the road from Juliaca to Puno had been closed and not buses or cars were allowed through (you have to go through Juliaca to get to Puno). Apparently there was some sort of labour strike going on, and protesters had blocked the road and were throwing rocks at all passing buses (maybe related to the protests in Lima, we´re not sure). We had 2 options as she explained it: we could take the smaller bus leaving around 9:30 which would take an alternative route once it got to Juliaca to reach Puno, or we could take our same bus later that evening, as the road would open at night. The girl explained that it is fairly common for these sorts of strikes to occur, to the point that they are now much more of a nuisance than anything and no one pays any attention. So we were quite happy to take the smaller bus, but we wanted the difference in price refunded to us (we had booked ´business class´ tickets on a double decker bus with a toilet, TVs, and reclining seats--not that this is what we preferred, but it seemed fairly cheap at the time). Well, I could go on and on about what happened next, the conversations I had in Spanish with both the girl and the bus company, and the conversations Nigel had in English with the girl from the tourist company, but to make a long story short, after 30 minute of arguing, Nigel and I were beyond pissed off (they wouldn´t refund any money, and we had paid 60 soles for our tickets when the cheaper buses that were actually going only cost 20 soles for both of us). We told the girl that we just wanted a full refund for our tickets as we were getting nowher. She said fine, but they'd take out the cost of the taxi. So we took a taxi back to the tourist office where we had booked our tickets and after some convoluted way of calculating things, she decided we were due 50 soles back. Well, 60 soles minus the 3 soles from the taxi that morning, minus thte 3 soles for the bus terminal departure tax coupon equals 54 soles. But she explained that not only did we have to pay for the taxi that morning (we already paid for the taxi back to the office) but we had to pay for the taxis for the person to go to the bus station and back to pick up our tickets. No way were we paying for this, as this is part of their service and chances are more than likely that they picked up more than just our tickets on the 6 sole taxi ride. We argued back and forth, then finally just agreed to take 51 soles (we made her pay her share of the taxi ride back to town because she would have had to pay 3 soles herself to get back). We could have called her boss to argue with him too, but she wouldn´t let us use the office phone and wouldn´t pay for the call. It was so frustrating because she kept saying it wasn´t her company´s fault (which we had agreed on from the very start, we were never blaming them) but yet she said that we had to cover the costs incurred by them as a result of all of this, even though it wasn´t our fault either. Very unfair. So we gave her 100 soles, and she said she only had 40 soles change. We demanded she go get change and we wanted our 49 change. While she went out, we told any tourists who paused to read their signs not to use this company because they totally suck, so we felt a bit better after that. So whatever you do, don´t use Wasi tours in Arequipa.

Our 51 soles in hand, we went back to the bus station, booked tickets on a 12:00 bus to Puno for 13 soles each and waited until it left nearly an hour late. The bus ride was uneventful until we reached Juliaca. Here they yelled through the bus to close the curtains, so we all tightly shut the curtains as we passed through town. Some passengers had to get off here, so the bus pulled off to the side of the road on some random street (as opposed to the bus stop) and we were out of there very quickly. I guess if any strikers saw that there were passengers on the bus they would get violent and start chucking rocks and stuff. There were rocks strewn all over the roads. Scary but adventurous too.

It was less than an hour from Juliaca to Puno, where we walked around the streets looking for an affordable hotel with availability (most were too expensive or completely booked, being the high season here) and found one on our 4th attempt. Puno is not the most exciting town. It sits at 3830m, right on the banks of Lake Titicaca. We booked a 2-day trip to Lake Titicaca for the next morning and then went out for some soup for dinner. We got back to the hotel in time to get a warmish shower before the hot water shut off at 9:00, and went to bed where Nige stayed up late into the night reading a book he was stuck into, and Kel went to sleep feeling sick and sorry for herself.