Written Sunday 13 April
It's been a shitty day to be brutally honest. Said my goodbyes last night to the absolutely lovely people I met on the Galapagos tour and the equally lovely hotel staff - shout out to the gorj receptionist Gabriel who let me use the front desk PC for blogging as soon as his manager left for the night :)
Woke up at 4 for a 5am taxi to the airport but got stuck in accident traffic for an HOUR on the bridge - luckily I'm really anal about plane/train times so made it okay... 5 hours of travelling later and bienvenido a Cusco. I was already doubting my choice (think would have preferred an Amazon jungle trip instead) and today didn't shine a great light on Cusco to be honest. Where to start...
-The room I've booked for tomorrow night might not actually be available, marvellous!
-In the 5 minutes it took to watch a flag ceremony in the main square about 10 people shoved their crappy jewellery and other tat in my face asking for money. Feck off already!
-A creepy old man started following and talking to me even though I made it clear I 'don't speak Spanish' (or English!). Very persistent so had to abort exploring mission and turn back the way I came which was annoying...obviously I don't mind chatting to normos (generally waiters, hotel staff, shop owners & taxi drivers) but it always seems to be the creepy ones
-An issue from home cropped up again today which cast a dark cloud over the rest of the afternoon. Before it felt like I'd been away for months but this snapped me straight back to reality, now it really feels like the short 11 days it's been. Blah
-2 of the people (foreign) in my 4 bed dorm barely said hello as they walked in and then proceeded to talk only to each other...nice. Now it appears they're sharing the bed right above mine, which can only mean one thing - will be sleeping with my headphones in tonight...!
-It's FREEZING! Am wearing leggings, PJs, a fleece and have a duvet and a blanket (plus a spare jumper on standby). Crazy to think it was so hot in the Galapagos just 2 days ago that I didn't even want to wear my bikini!
Redeeming factors of the day include free wifi in the rooms and an amazing hot chocolate from the Starbucks I found among the row of shops/cafés/hostels framing the main square. Gotta love home comforts on days like these :)
Feeling pretty low and wishing I was with someone from home. It's only 9pm but just want this day to be over. Tomorrow is another day I guess and things can only get better from here, I hope...
