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It´s been a while

Wednesday, June 28th, 2006

Yes, I think I slipped into a black hole since arriving in Peru (maybe I should re-phrase that). Well before leaving Bolivia I spent half a day trekking out from Copacabana to Yampupata along the lakeside and around through the woods of the mainland. From Yampupata I had to barter a decent price to get a boat over to the Isla del Sol, which ended up being a row boat. The island has legend of it being the birthplace of the Incas, or certainly their sun god.

I spent a night over on the island, rose the next day to trek about it before catching the ferry back to Copacabana. This town did not endear itself to me when I arrived back at my hotel at midnight to find it locked up and no-one answering the bell. With the prospect of freezing my bollocks off sleeping in the park with the dogs for the night I wandered around town trying to find somewhere else open with no joy until I bumped into the mexican girl who worked in one of the restaurants. She was my life saver as she not only took me round to her mates hotel who had a spare bed, but they also plied me with weed and wine and it turned out to be a better night than if I´d returned to my cheap-ass room

The next day however, I really had to escape this shitty town and caught a bus to Cusco in Peru. Two and a half weeks in Cusco, most of which is unprintable, other than making it up to Machu Picchu for a healthy break, from where I had one of those experiences that you´ll always remember, looking down over the site and the location around it blew me away. No photo* can do it justice, but this was a moment when I realised that the view was what I had in my mind when I´d previously thought of South America. Despite all the hype around it, and my cynical nature, it turned out to be every bit as stunning as it´s made out to be.
Machu Picchu (courtesy of Buena Vista 2005 on Flickr)
After returning to Cusco for one last weekend of debauchery, I caught an overnight bus out of the Peruvian party capital down to the slightly more sedate Arequipa. We visited the Colca Canyon in the first few days, saw a condor (the main attraction), headed back to Arequipa and did some museum stuff. Then I said goodbye to Ruth and Alison who went on ahead while I chose to hang around for a little while longer, partly due to my hangover from the Saturday night, though it may have something to do with the girls of this city! Well I´m currently holding fort running the bar in the hostel for a short while, gives me something to do and cheaper living, meanwhile I get to see many of the people I met in Cusco passing through. While my scheduled plans for Peru have all gone out the window, life´s good and that´s all that counts right now 🙂

*Photos are a sore point as I left my camera on the train to Machu Picchu and lost it. This is what happens when I´m made to get up at 5am! I´ll try to add some from other people in the future.