Peru: Andean Explorer

I’ve already written about my time in Peru – in the rainforest and in and around Cusco. From Cusco we travelled to the city of Puno – by amazing train journey on the Andean Explorer. This trip is more expensive than flying I think but it was a fun experience in itself!

The trains themselves are first-class, 1920s style affairs with armchairs for seats and silver service.

Place Setting on the Train

The train was in a time warp, with organised events (live music, pisco sour distribution (at 10am!), and even a fashion show of wildly expensive knitwear), and silver service performed by synchronised teams of waiters who leaned to either side of the aisle in time with one another. The food was nice but the dancing servers reduced me to giggles every time they arrived.

The views were spectacular, as we left Cusco and travelled through the Andes and across the Altiplato – a large (HUGE, this was a 10 hour train journey) plateau between the two sides of the Andes – and along to Lake Titcaca. The whole trip is at altitude – like a normal landscape, but 3000 to 4000 metres above sea level!

Growing Corn Outside Cusco

Train Tracks

The train lines in Peru are kind of exciting in that they often run along streets and are completely unenclosed. There are animals, people, vehicles and who knows what else all along the tracks, its madness! In Juliaca (a place just outside Puno), there were lots of little stalls with bits of car parts and so on, seriously a different world. There are more photos in my flickr set for this part of the trip.

3 thoughts on “Peru: Andean Explorer

  1. In my blogging excitement, I somehow managed to write about the rainforest, areas around Cusco and Ollantaytambo and then go straight on to describe our train ride to Puno. In a rather major omission I seem to have missed out a post about visiting Machu

  2. This is an update on part of my trip to Peru. You might also like to read about the time spent in the rainforest, in and around Cusco, at Machu Picchu and en route to Puno on the Andean Explorer. Next we spent a couple of nights in Puno, including a da

  3. Here goes the final entry about my Peruvian travels. You might also like to read about the time spent in the rainforest, in and around Cusco, at Machu Picchu , en route to Puno on the Andean Explorer and around Puno itself.

    We started and ended our tr

Leave a Reply

Please use [code] and [/code] around any source code you wish to share.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.