Captainwindsock

Im going to be in La Paz, Bolivia in May and want to go to Machu Picchu. My first idea was to fly from La Paz to Lima (night stop) then Cusco. I don't really need to go to Lima. Then when I was checking trains from Cusco to Machu Picchu I spotted an intresting journey from Puno on Lake Titicata direct to Cusco. This would avoid Lima and the night stop.

A couple of questions:

1) Are these trains realiable. I'm travelling in May.

2) How can I get from La Paz to Puno. Lake Titicaca was on my list of places to visit anyway so part of that journey was all ready on the itinery.

P_M

First of all may I ask your citizenship? If you are not American you may disregard the following.

If you are American you might want to re-think Bolivia unless you will be there more than just a couple of days. I visted Peru in June of this year and my original plan was to start in La Paz. But then I learned about the advanced visa requirement Bolivia has for US citizens. I decided it wasn't worth the hassle or expense for just a couple of days in La Paz. Check out this web site and decide if it's worth it for you:

http://bolivia.usembassy.gov/bvreq.html

P_M

Upon re-reading your post it looks like your primary destination will be Bolivia? If that's the case then the visa process might be worth it for you. Sorry, it's late and I've had too much vino.

Captainwindsock

British. I'm doing several South American countries and to be honest they are probably all of equal importance although I imaaagaine Mach Picchu will be a highlight.

rolncathy

We just returned from Peru a couple of weeks ago. I believe you can fly from La Paz in to Juliaca, Peru, which is just a short bus ride from Puno. Juliaca is known for its festivals. We were only there two nights and there were 2 unrelated festival celebrations that went late into the night both nights. We caught the local bus to Puno. I am sure securing transportation from Puno to Juliaca and the airport would be no problem. We flew from Juliaca to Lima. A friend from Bolivia had planned to meet us in Juliaca and was checking out flights from Bolivia into Juliaca. She ended up meeting us in Lima, for reasons unrelated to flight schedules.

We chose not to go into Bolivia at that time because of the political unrest, especially the areas we were going to go into, Sucre and Santa Cruz.

Good luck with your plans. We thoroughly enjoyed our 3 weeks on Peru, and plan to make the return trip in a couple of years for the Bolivia leg of our trip that we missed out on this time.