Jan 7, Puno to Mollendo

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Alarm at 530.



I was excited about hopeully heading to the beach! We weren't able to find any information yesterday on the internet about morning buses to Arequipa (where we would transfer to a bus to Mollendo), so we just headed to the station.



We found several 8am buses and just got tickets for the one with no line. They charged us 20 soles, everyone else was charged 15! I should have called them on it but I just let it go. We went looking for some breakfast at the station but all we saw were little stores selling candy and chips. Then we noticed sandwiches with cheese, only .50 soles each! About 15 cents! Pretty good, just bread with the yummy salty cheese. We weren't able to find coffee though - boo.



We got on the bus, the ride wasn't so bad, but Chris went to go to the bathroom and some guy told him it wasn't working. Later (2 hours later) we found out it was, maybe the guy was just being a jerk. Everyone on the top level of the bus apparently had to go because there was suddenly a big line.

We arrived at the Arequipa bus station, and found a bus company going to Mollendo. We got tickets for the next bus, which was luckily leaving a few minutes late, and within a couple minutes we were on our way to the beach! That ride took about two hours. It was ok except they played a Jean Claude Van Damme movie and it was SO LOUD. The scenery on the way there was mountainous and desert, very pretty. We went to find something to eat after checking into the hotel, had some sandwiches at a little restaurant. They were okay. We wanted to hit the beach but it was already cooling off by the time we arrived,



so after the sandwiches we walked down to the beach to catch the sunset.









Then headed back up and dealt with our flight back to Lima for an hour, which we thought we had booked but was canceled because of a system error (we came to find out). The outcome was that our tickets were actually a total of $200 cheaper. Apparently, at least on LAN (south american airline), if you book from the country you're flying in, it is much cheaper. So the outcome was good! Wish we'd known that sooner. We walked around and had an ice cream, then headed back to the hotel and hit the hay.