This morning we put our bags out ready for the bell boys to collect, as today we were flying back to Lima.
After breakfast and check out, we all assembled in the foyer. We checked that our bags had arrived from our rooms, and it was then show time. We walked with our cabin bags down to our regular bus stop, across the road and around the corner. Crossing the road this morning was even more crazy than what we had experienced the last couple of days, as it was Monday morning peak hour traffic.
Eventually we all made it across the road safely. Some may have needed to run for their life, however the end result was good!!
Obviously alpaca and llama were stuck in traffic, so we had to wait a few minutes until the buses arrived.
When they did, we all jumped aboard the buses.... next stop Cusco airport. The driving in cusco is a remarkable feat, especially if you actually arrive at your final destination alive. I don't understand how they don't have more accidents. The game of chicken again was played on the cusco roads this morning, and I can tell you now the bus had a 100% win record. As always, with each of the close calls we had on the roads, there were lots of 'ooooooo's and arghs' coming from the back of the bus.... We are all back seat drivers of course.
We arrived at the airport, and again I was sitting on Jan's knee cringing whilst the bus driver first parked the bus in between two cars. The bus had parked so close to the cars, that the driver and the passenger of the two cars would actually need a can opener to get into their cars!!! There is no way that they would have been able to walk down to unlock the door, little lone open it. Seeing that it would have also been hard for us to get out of the bus, the driver then proceeded to slam the bus into reverse, and to then reverse park into another parking spot. Again it was between 2 cars, however the space was quite a bit larger. Oh my god, I seriously thought that he was going to crash the bus. But again I was so surprised at the fact that he manoeuvred the bus into place with no problems what so ever.
Fernando told us that once we arrived at the airport to just stay seated until Luis gets all of our bags transported into the airport by the porters. Only then would we go in, pick up our bag and check it in. I was so surprised that when we arrived at the airport not one of us moved. We all just sat there, patiently in our seats, waiting for the command from Fernando. It just goes to show how much we have conformed to Fernando's commands. I mean think about it, when the cabin crew on a plane says please remain seated, how many people actually listen.... None!! So I had to laugh when I found that we all just sat on the bus.
We then got the ok from Fernando to disembark the bus and to make our way to the checkin counter. For the first time ever on this tour, the glamazon's were the first ones to checkin. We then made our way through security and to the boarding gate.
Seats were prime real estate in the waiting area. There were so many people hanging around, waiting to catch a plane, and not enough seats to accommodate their bottoms. I managed to spot a group of 4 seats together, so I quickly made my way over to stake my claim.
We waited it out. Some of the glamazon's did some shopping, others talked, and some like me mucked around on our phone or iPads.
We boarded the plane, and I was lucky enough to be sitting next to a really nice, friendly gay couple from Perth. They too had been to Machu Picchu, and were on their first of many flights to Patagonia. We chatted for a large portion of the flight which was great. It was nice to have someone who actually spoke English sitting next to me.
The flight was a little turbulent, but that's to be expected when flying in and around the Andes. It must have to do with the wind currents.
We arrived safely in Lima, and I said my farewell and gave my well wishes to my flight buddies!!
We disembarked the plane, and headed straight to baggage claim to collect our cases. We slowly made our way out to gen pub, and searched for the Lima guide and her Globus sign. We found her quite quickly, and she started to walk some of the group out to the bus. A few of us piped up saying that we didn't think that this was a good idea. You don't just leave half a group at the airport. A large proportion of the people on our tour honestly would be so lost without a guide holding up their globus sign. However, she was adamant that she had to direct the luggage porters to the bus. So we said to her that maybe she should go, and Rob suggested that maybe we should keep the sign with us. Just so we could direct the rest of the gang in the right direction. She reluctantly let go of the Globus sign. Rob was holding the sign up, and people were slowly making their way through the gates and headed our way. However Rob started to fail in his duties of primary sign holder, he was too busy talking and not holding the sign up. So a vote was taken at the back of the group, that I would be the next sign holder. I went up to Rob and told him that we had a survivor like vote out the back, and he was no longer the peoples choice for the holder of the Globus sign!! He reluctantly handed the sign over to me. I took my sign holding duties very serious. The sign was held high above my head (cause let's face it I'm not the tallest of people). As people came through the gates I started jumping up and down, waving the sign. No one escaped seeing the sign on my watch. I only had the sign for about 2mins before Rosa the guide came back. She desperately wanted the sign back from me.... I could just see her placing a big cross against Rob and my names, as she snatched the sign back from my hands. Damn.... I quite enjoyed that job!!
Finally everyone arrived through the gate, and we walked to the bus TOGETHER. We all boarded the bus and we were off. On the way to the hotel, we were to stop off at a local food market. Everyone was so tired from the flight, and just looking forward to getting to the hotel. If we had taken a vote, we all would have voted to head straight to the hotel. In fact many of us were trying I come up with reasons why we couldn't go!
The drive to the market took over an hour. Everyone just had glazed looks in their eyes. Every now and again we all let out an 'ooooooo', or a 'that was close', to cars that our bus nearly collected on this journey. The driving in Peru is just purely hectic, and just a pure fluke that you turn up at your destination alive.
We did arrive at the market and were herded into the very large shed, that housed all different types of market food stalls. We walked all of 1metre into the shed and were stopped in front of a fruit stall. Here Rosa organised for us to taste a custard apple, some other melon type fruit (tasted like a cantaloupe with the texture of a pear) and these other yellow berries that were quite tart. After we tried these fruit, we thought that we were going to continue on our tour deeper and further into the shed. Let's see what these markets really have to show us. Not the case. Nope, instead Rosa lead us straight out the front door. Maybe she is taking us to the fish part, or the meat part, or even the arts and crafts. However, you can imagine just how disappointed we were when she lead us straight back to the bus. What was the point. We were there for all of about 15mins. I so would have preferred to skip that part of the tour all together!!
Oh well, we jumped back on the bus, and were driven another 20mins to our hotel.
Once checked in, I decided that I was going to try and find a place to send some stuff home. So I quickly sorted out what I wanted to send home. Jan did the same thing..... Really, Jan and I just wanted to free up some more luggage space so we could buy more stuff to take home. As simple as that. So Rob, Kathy, Jan and I all went in search of a courier place. We had instructions from the concierge on where to find this courier.... However that doesn't mean that when we turn up to the address given that it will actually be a courier there. Last time we got instructions from this concierge, instead of finding Incan ruins, we instead found a cat park.
The concierge was right. We found the courier company exactly where they said it would be. We approached the desk and spoke to a lady, showing her the parcel in question, and letting her know that we wanted to send it to Australia. She then did some searching on her computer, and finally gave us a price.... 1400 soles. Hmmmm, I did the maths, no that cant be right.... Over $400us. No. So I asked her to show me again, she assured me that this price was right. It wasn't for me. I slowly started to back away from the counter.... I turned around and ran out the door. That's crazy!!
So we decided to try the post office. We had to walk quite a few blocks before we even got close to it. We had also received directions from the concierge on where to find the post office, however it wasn't quite where they had marked it's location on the map. So I then decided to ask a security guard. I was trying to remember the words for post office in Spanish.... I was starting to spit it out when he said in very clear English, argh the post office. Hahahaha, sometimes you are just pleasantly surprised!!! We followed his directions and wella, we arrived.
We waited in the line, and eventually we were served by a lady behind a large clear screen. She weighed the parcel, did some calculations on her calculator, and then wrote down the amount. It was a lot more reasonable... The price was closer to $60US. However the problem was, they did not sell boxes. Holy crap, so now we needed to find somewhere that sells boxes.... as well as sticky tape, so that we can tape it all up. By this stage however, I just gave up. This was far too complicated. I actually started think that this was a sign not to send anything home - So I decided not to. Instead, we headed to the artesian market to see what we could find.
We walked around the stalls, many of which were similar to the last stall we just looked at. There were bags, scarves, T shirts, souvenirs, you name it, they had it. If they didn't have it at their stall, they would just run a few stalls down and grab it from another persons stall. So obviously all of them were interconnected!!
Kathy and Jan found some beautiful scarves which they haggled down and bought. I, on the other hand found a cabin bag. It was quite a large bag that would fit on the plane a cabin luggage. When we flew back from cusco this morning, I noticed that half the plane had these cabin bags. So I decided to join them in buying one. Hopefully this will sort out all of my baggage problems!!! Hahahaha, all it really means is that a bigger bag = My ability to buy more stuff.... Yep that sounds like my luggage problems are now completely sorted. I know that I will be able to pack this baby to full capacity, however I don't think I will be able to lift it!!
We walked around the market for quite some time. I think we found as much as what we were going to find at this market, so decide to head back to the hotel.
We had made tentative plans to meet a few people for dinner at 6pm. We had earlier asked the hotel concierge about their recommendations for a good steak restaurant. They had marked one on the map, along with the courier company and the post office.
So we made it back to the hotel with just enough time to get changed and ready for dinner. We met in the foyer, only to find that the numbers wanting to go out for steak had increased dramatically. So we thought that we would do the right thing, and at least book a table. So we asked the concierge if they could please help us with making a reservation. They advised that it would not be a problem, and also asked us if we would like for them to organise taxis for us as well. Hang on a sec, we were shown the restaurant on the map, and it looked like it was within walking distance. The guy behind the desk then advised us 'that I can assure you that it is not within walking distance, in fact it is a 20min taxi ride from the hotel'. We were all wrecked from the day of travelling, and this was the straw that broke the camels back!! All it took was for one person to pull the pin, and just like a snowball effect everyone decided that they were not heading out or dinner. Instead, we all just walked 10 metres, straight into the hotel restaurant.
There we found Roz and Paul having a romantic dinner together. That wasn't going to last long, as we pulled up some tables and chairs to their table. We ordered drinks, and slowly throughout the night, more and more people arrived at the restaurant. We just kept adding more and more tables on, until eventually we had a table of 17 people. I do kind of feel sorry for Roz and Paul, they started off having a romantic dinner for two, only to find themselves having dinner with 15 other people. They really didn't seem to mind though..... Especially after we all had a few cocktails under our belts.
We had a delicious dinner, along with some drinks, so many stories and a hell of a lot of laughs. However all good things must come to an end, and it was not only the end of our night together, but it was also the end of the tour. It had now come down to the pointy end. It was time to say our final goodbyes to a lot of the people we had met on the South American tour. As of tomorrow, we would all be heading off in our separate directions (except for us lucky ones doing the post-tour extension to the Galápagos Islands.... We still had another week with each other!!!).
So we slowly walked around and hugged it out. Wishing everyone safe journeys... and just like that we headed up to our separate rooms. It's sad knowing that we most likely will never see these people again. We had such a fantastic group and shared some amazing experiences in one of the most beautiful parts of the world!! So blessed!!!
I made my way back to my room, only to be confronted with my most favourite job in the world.... Packing!!! Another day, another suitcase to pack!!!