Oppphhhh....

Today's been a bit stressy...

Started up heading to the local hypermarket and buying a towel (left mine at home), but not without watching the France-Uruguay quarter final on one of the flat screen TVs for sale.

Caught the rest of the game, before checking out and heading to the airport...

The Viva Air queues to check onto the plane were probably the worst i've ever been in. It took about 40minutes. And I was far from the back. To make things worse, I therefore only managed to check-in just before boarding, which meant a stressy pit-stop to get lunch and run through security.

The flight was very crampt. But that was the only drawback. The views were phenomenal as we ascended, and ascended the Andes. We glided amongst the mountains before descending to Cuzco Airport - the most dangerous in the world.

Luckily, it was perfectly fine, and I was soon heading to the hostel. The cuscopackers hostel is brilliantly situated overlooking the city. I really like Cusco. It's very touristy but it absorbs the crowds well and has a friendly atmosphere. Lot more comfortable walking at night here than I was in Lima.

I decided to head down to the Plaza de Armas and explore the city centre. The colonial architecture was beautiful, all lit up, it was just really nice to walk around and soak it up, before dinner in a lovely family owned eatery.

There's one small problem with flying direct from Lima to Cusco. The altitude. Cusco is at 3,400m altitude and you definitely feel it. You feel more irritable, but worse you can feel almost like you're suffocating. Walking back up to the hostel, it was almost like you could feel the air struggling to get to your legs. I've also got the annoyance of the HDMI lead that connects my camera to the laptop breaking. It last 5 days. The one reason I got a new camera!

(P.S. couple hours later I realise I've been a bit of an idiot and I don't actually need the cable at all...)

Tomorrow am just gonna rest most of the day. Altitude has sucked the life out of my brain a bit so need to just chill and acclimitize. You find yourself getting irritated by small, stupid things although to be fair it has been a stressy day. Cusco really is a lovely place, but I feel I may be doing a bit of a marathon right now. Every day has had a big chunk of travel in it, I can't wait for Monday Afternoon!

Vamos!