We’re in Lima now. And we’ve almost made it back to Cuenca.
We had to leave Puno a day early–our airline changed our Lima to Guayaquil departure time from 10:45 a.m. tomorrow to just after midnight tomorrow. So we bussed 7 hours from Puno to Cuzco yesterday and–get this–were held up by roadblocks (yes, more roadblocks!) outside Juliaca, on the way to Cuzco.
The reason for the trouble: a disputed soccer championship, astoundingly. Apparently the team from Juliaca lost to Puno’s squad in a controversial match, and Juliaca’s fans blocked all highways in an attempt to be awarded the crown. These protesters, though, unlike Bolivia’s, lacked logistical organization–our bus driver simply diverged from Juliaca’s main drag, where some rocks were strewn haphazardly about, and took an alternate route through town.
We flew from Cuzco to Lima today; we’ll arrive in Guayaquil early tomorrow morning and then we’ll be in Cuenca by tomorrow afternoon.