With months running out yet so much left to explore, I made a new mission to get back into Peru quickly with the intention to travel north to the famed ´Cordillera Blanca´. Given such a journey would take days of butt-numbing bus rides from La'Paz through Cusco to Lima, I decided to book a cheap domestic flight from Juliaca near Puno, straight for the nation's capital on Friday, July 13.
I'm not superstitious, however did roll my eyes when things got complicated after reaching La'Paz to be informed that most major roads in southern Peru had been blocked for days. Apparently thousands of locals were supporting a protest against new government policy aimed to radically improve 'teacher quality' across the country, hence my original plan to reach Juliaca the following day (located just hours inside the Peruvian border) was going to get much more complicated.
In addition my tourist VISA was running out so I at least had to try crossing into Peru sooner rather than later, hence I travelled on Thursday 12th to Copacabana on Lake Titicaca (which I had visited 2 mths prior with Nic) to get ´that much closer´ to the border. Luckily, early on Friday July 13 with little over half a day till my flight, word spread that the strike would be alleviated for a few hours in the morning, so I took the window of opportunity to attempt crossing into Peru and beelining for Puno.
The crossing went as smoothly as expected under such circumstances (ie. long queueing at immigration with hundreds of others before being lumped onto a new bus on the other side of the border which HAD NOT received my main backpack from the old bus until it was mentioned), yet within an hour of travelling alongside pretty Lake Titicaca we were halted by masses of dirt mounds, shouting locals and banked up traffic.
Naturally we poured out of our bus to check out the commotion before being promptly told by the driver that we wouldn't be going any further. Having crossed the border 'early' did have it's advantages though, in that we could better see what was going on and I noticed an open, empty ambulance parked along the roadside. Suggesting to Nathaniel (my latest travel buddy) that perhaps we could get more helpful information from the medics, we approached with our basic Spanish skills to learn that they were also heading to Puno and were negotiating a humanitarian right-of-passage; despite no sign of an injured patient inside. I quickly flashed some US dollars and asked if we could stowaway in the back of the ambulance to pass through and amazingly we were soon grabbing our backpacks and indiscreetly getting into the main cabin to spend the following few hours on-route to Puno.
Once arriving in Puno, we made our way to the main bus terminal where I hooked up with other travellers to journey by taxi straight to Juliaca airport. At this point I still remained ´positively pessimistic´ about things and couldn't help rolling my eyes when our taxi was forced to further wind through more barricaded streets trying to get through town. Upon arrival at the airport we noticed many soldiers sitting on a nearby fence with their accompaniment of semi-automatic weapons hanging up beside in disorganised fashion. Quickly we were informed that a separate strike in Juliaca was in place AND that the airport would be closed for a further 3 days hence I was going to miss my flight anyway.
We headed towards the nearest "Star Peru" offices to discuss our options, and were told that the airport might re-open the next day. At least they assured me that my ticket would be transferred to a later day's flight, however from a tourism standpoint Juliaca is a dead zone, so I considered busing to either Cusco or Arequipa to fly out from there instead. Flights from Cusco to Lima were booked out for days so I bussed to Arequipa in the late afternoon, realising that the blockades would be back in full force the next day.
The strike seemed for a fair enough cause, however I couldn't quite understand how so many locals had got behind a protest movement with such drastic plans in literally assisting to 'undevelop' their own country's trade and tourism infrastructure. In the end THEY as taxpayers would end up paying for the problems caused, but I guess that 'locals seeing the big picture beyond today' is one of the challengers South American countries still face in trying to progress.
By 11pm that night, our bus to Arequipa was swerving masses of large rocks scattered all over the road before halting at an electricity plant and emptying it's passengers into the freezing cold street with no further transport options. Fortunately at 1am a few private cars drove past and after being chased by a mob of stranded passengers (including me), they stopped to offer lifts to Arequipa at extortionist rates per head. So with 7 other people I bundled into the boot of a station wagon, unwittingly realising that my fate was to spend the next 3 hrs cramped inside as we slowly navigated through a fresh blockade of scattered rocks, dirt mounds, fires and local gangs (including uniformed police) carrying stones for launching at any vehicles attempting to pass without permission.
Finally at 4am on Friday July 14, I made it to central Arequipa feeling much like I´d had escaped an upcoming war zone, whereby I caught a few hours sleep before heading to the airport to finally fly to Lima that afternoon *whew*
