Not gonna lie, this day kinda sucked. I slept like a bloody rock until about 8am which means I slept close to 12 hours. Upon waking up I wondered back out to the tracks where I was told cabs would still not arrive until about 1pm. It was a 2 hour walk to Santa Theresa and figured, screw it, I´m not waiting around. About a half hour into the walk though, I met some more construction workers who gave me a ride the rest of the way to Santa Theresa. They were odd construction workers as they kept getting out of the car to take pics of the river we were next to. Posted one of the pictures. They were excited about it too, like tourists or something.
Santa Theresa is not a very impressive town. It was basically my first experience of a real Peruvian town in the middle of nowhere. I kept looking around for a cab to take me to the zipline and none were to be found. I was getting kind of anxious because I wanted to try and make it back to Cusco in time to go out dancing as it was Saturday night. At this point I decided to try and cut my loses and get the hell back to Cusco.
I did find a cab that would take me to Santa Maria where I knew I could catch a bus headed back to tourist land, and what a cab ride it was. To give you an idea, I was basically in a valley and the road was hung on the mountains about halfway up the valley. I was in the front seat of a tiny little hatchback cab with the driver who was constantly amused by my white knuckles. In the back seat were three locals and behind them, in the hatchback, was an old Quechua lady and a young boy. Did I mention the front hood was tied down with a rope because the latch was broken, no? Ok, now I just did. Over the course of the cab ride we forded several small rivers, went over a bridge that looked like it had no business supporting cars, and honked before every hairpin turn to let traffic on the other side know we were coming. Yeah...
Santa Maria made Santa Theresa look like a golden metropolis. Pic posted of it. It was a dusty little shit-heel of a town and the bugs were determined to get through my wall of mosquito spray. They succeeded too, despite my constant use of spray to the point where I was getting light-headed, and I have the bite marks all over my ankles to prove it. Apparently they crawled inside my shoes to get at my flesh. Lovely thought. To add insult to injury, there was a nice big billboard advertising the zipline in the main square. Nice.
The transportation situation got worse too. I bought a bus ticket that said I would be picked up at 2pm for Cusco. Not true. The bus just passes through the town headed the other direction at 2pm. It comes back to Santa Maria at about 4:30pm. Not only that, but I soon found out the road towards Cusco was closed due to construction until 6pm. Basically, I wouldn´t be getting to Cusco until after midnight. Goodbye Saturday night.
I´ll admit, I sulked for a bit, but then I turned to the one thing that can solve all problems, or at least make you forget about them for a bit, ALCOHOL! I sat down at a local pub for a beer and was soon chatting with a truck driver, Herman, who thought it was awesome that I drove in the United States. We exchanged licenses and he pointed out his family to me. I was only halfway through my large bottle of beer when my bus arrived so I handed the rest to him and boarded the bus in much better spirits.
The bus ride was kinda like the cab ride only I couldn´t see where we were going. I´m not sure if that made it better or worse. We had to stop on the road for about an hour at the construction site. I bought some street food to keep from starving and up to this point I´m still alive so it must have been ok. Arrived in Cusco about 12:30am exhausted, surfed the net at the hostel because my head was spinning too much to sleep, crashed until this morning.
Not going to make a detailed post about today right now. Lots of shopping, lots of amazing food, and a dinner music and dance show that was quite lovely. Posting a pic of me, a Quechua woman, and her Alpaca and a pic of one of the dancers at my dinner show. I get picked up tomorrow at 5am for 4 days and 3 nights in the jungle. Going with an outfit called Macaw Adventure. Their address in Cusco is Plateros calle no 324. Look them up if you never hear from me again....just kidding! I`m sure I´ll be fine!
I really will be fine Mom. Expect a post Thursday night, although I will try to make a brief update if one of the jungle towns has internet.
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