You can’t really say that you know Peru if you haven’t travelled in a Combi. The Combi is often like a human tin of sardines.
The word “full” does not exist in the Combi driver’s vocabulary. The seats are crammed into the vehicle with very little leg room,
I am at present in Puno in the south of Peru. Puno is situated on the shores of Lake Titicaca and is near the Bolivian border.
I came to Puno this time for two reasons:
- To enjoy yet again the festival of the Candelaria, which is always a mind-blowing experience. This is my third visit to the festival.
- To visit two Uros communities on small floating islands on Lake Titicaca to complete information for a post I am presently preparing,
But now, these new posts will have to wait………. for today I had a special Combi experience!!!!!
After returning from Lucho’s floating island to a small port, Qalapajra, just outside of Puno, I took a ” Combi Grenate” (so called because of its bright grenadine colour) in order to return to my hotel.
All the seats were taken, and there were a number of people standing. At first the sliding door wouldn’t close and I had to push a little harder to fully enter. When the door was closed, the driver started off with a lurch and two pairs of hands just managed to stop me from collapsing onto an old grandmother’s lap. Once I was wedged in securely, I thanked them for their help… and a conversation began.
“Where are you from? How long in Peru?”, the two women inquired. I answered these questions and quite a few more, before arriving at my stop and finding a way to extricate myself from the vehicle.
Later, I took another Combi to go to the town centre. It was also full except for the extra bench- seat behind the driver facing backwards. As this was an additionally added seat, the leg room was zero. I had to carefully weave my legs between the two people sitting in front of me.
Still, I did have a seat. All the seats were taken except for a narrow space on the tiny bench seat next to me.
We stopped and two women got on. They were the same two women, from the previous ride in the morning. One sat on the space on my bench and the other remained standing,
After greeting me, they shared the story of our previous meeting with the other passengers, perhaps because it was such a coincidence. They mentioned that I was English and lived in Peru, One other passenger then asked me directly, what I was doing in Puno. My answer with a laugh and smile was, “You’d better ask these two. They seem to know more about me than I do.” And as if to prove the point, they told everyone, that I lived in Lima, came to Puno for the Festival, had one daughter in Peru and one in England, Another passenger then asked if my wife was English or Peruvian. I answered that she was Peruvian but that we are now divorced. On hearing this, I received a variety of good-hearted suggestions on how that could easily be remedied here in Puno.
The twenty- five minute journey passed very quickly and I was able to take a “Listo…… uno, dos, tres, ya!” (one, two, three, go!) type photo of them before arriving at my destination.
The Combis all have two crew members. the driver who thinks he is a Formula One Ace,
and the “Cobrador” who tells the driver when to stop, opens and closes the sliding door, and takes the one Sol fare (£0.20 – $0.26) from each passenger. The Combis have set routes but stop on any street corner to drop or pick up passengers.
This Combi ride was indeed a very unusual one, perhaps the reason why I chose to write about it. Please do not think that this happens every time you get on a Combi in Peru,
But just three things to clarify before ending this post.
- I am certainly not going to take up the passenger’s advice on how to make future relationships in Puno.
- Peruvian Combis are indeed often a “little too full”.
- The Combi drivers in Peru are indeed commonly recognised as being Kamikazi ex- Formula1 racing drivers.
Here, a gallery of the comings and goings as we hurtled towards the centre of Puno!
Wanderings! 
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