Today was the first day I have been in Florida in over 20 years. Definitely more. I have also never been to Miami before. Of course I had to cross the entire airport to get to my connecting flight. The airport was nothing special and entirely in Spanish it seems. The flight to Miami was uneventful with only a little turbulence. The flight to Lima was a bit over 5 hours. I watched the second Transformers movie sort of and passed out towards the middle. I did manage to get a bit of sleep on the flight which surprised me. In Lima I had to go through customs and rescreen for security for a 3rd time. Things went ok though. I had more than 2 hours to get to the connecting flight to Cusco. The wait for the last flight was longer than the flight itself.
I arrived in Cusco. There was supposed to be someone from the tour company to pick me up but he was late and I ended up taking a taxi to the hotel. When I got there they told me he was waiting for me. I did give him 20 minutes. Oh well. The Hotel Marqueses is an old mansion converted into a hotel. The room is bigger than a European room but of unusual layout. They have computer with internet connection and a half dead Spanish keyboard that I am typing this on. I decided to sleep until noon because I was exhausted and chasing a cold then I got up and cleaned up and walked around the main square. Perfect timing. It started to downpour. I ended up getting lunch at a tourist trap Italian restaurant that had only non-Peruvians in it. I had spaghetti al pesto. It wasn't bad but the pesto was more pasty than I was expecting. No alcohol they say it is no good starting out in the altitude with it. I did have a coffee. Oh, and the hotel gave me my first coca tea as soon as I got here.
Everyone around the town tries to sell you something. Pictures, ponchos, massages, you name it. It is sort of tiring saying no thank you so much but I suppose they have to attack all tourists or they will never make any money. I wandered around a bit and talked to one of the locals trying to sell me small paintings for a few minutes and then took a bunch of pictures of the area.
After that I visited SAS Travel and settled up for my tour. Every trip this week is a full 16 people but for some odd reason the tour I am on is actually only going to be 4. I am sort of psyched about that. I may even end up having a tent all to myself. Anyway, I am doing the extra night in Aguas Callientes and have opted for a single room for the hostal there. After settling I wandered some more then headed back to the room where I tried to quickly type this. I will relax a bit then try to get some dinner maybe. I should be able to post each day until Monday when I am on the hike, but this keyboard is going to really test my patience.
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