Wake up call today was 6.30am. We boarded a bus outside our hotel in Puno to get the 8am bus to Cusco. We´d already been told that this was a 7 hour bus ride on a local bus. Both of us were expecting a ramshackle vehicle complete with cows, pigs and chickens crammed on board, but we were pleasantly suprised to find it was a rather nice shiny coach with an on board toilet.

The journey passed quite nicely for Andy - Andrea´s sure he was asleep for most of it... Andrea stayed awake and watched the scenery change from the sparse altiplano flat lands with snowcapped mountains in the distance to a more agricultural landscape dotted with villages and farm animals.

We were given a complimentary snack pack of biscuits, sweets, tea and a small plastic cup of coca cola - you don´t get that on National Express!

We had a brief convenience stop halfway through the journey to strech our legs and give the locals another chance to try to sell us local handicrafts (jumpers, bags, hats etc knitted from the local alpaca wool).

We arrived in Cusco in the afternoon. Our hotel was well positioned - just down the road from the main square. The hotel was a colonial style mansion that had been refurbished. It had a central courtyard covered with a glass roof - very nice!

We had a short walk to the main square for a coffee overlooking the two big colonial style buildings there (the Cathedral and the La Compania de Jesus).

We both felt much better in Cusco as the city is 500m lower that Puno (3300 metres above sea level as compared to 3800m).

Tea was another meal out (very cheap in Peru). We both had a lovely spicy chicken broth - mmmm!