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Last few days in Peru....

Assure you I am far from being sad geek sitting blogging instead of going out and doing the stuff known as fun! Am in Puno, seem to have hit the middle of the ¨Festival de la Virgen de la Candelabra¨ and so far Puno is not as bad as everyone we´ve met has made out! I think it´s alright....but that could be something to do with the constant parades and mad costumes and music. Put my washing in today....will be bliss when it comes back all clean and smelling nice! All my clothes are trashed and I look like a hobo. Got bus yesterday...was supposed to be at 11.30 but at 12.30 we were still in the bus station, with a nice number of people on the bus, not full you know. But when we got out of the bus station, the driver let lots of people on, (prob for cheaper and bypassing the ticket office and pocketing the profits, cynical, moi?) and it was packed! And, there were definitely a high percentage of soap dodgers on that bus! Then it broke down in the arse end of nowhere! And a small boy changed the tyre, with the engine still going...big big tyre, while all the normal sized blokes stood around and watched! This bus had like 8 wheels, you´d think they could carry on if one fell off! Anyway, whilst dying from the heat and the smell, I discovered the downstairs part of the bus, with only 2 very clean looking people sat there...hee hee. So I sneakily moved, bringing C & 2 other English girls with me where we sat in luxury for the next 7 hours. My favourite bit of bus journeys is when people get on and sell you hot corn on the cob for about 20p. Mm. They can keep their dodgy looking ice lollies though! Got to Puno a couple of hours later than expected...and followed English girls off the bus to their hotel...thus no thinking for ourselves which made a nice change. Very nice hotel for about $3...but have to wait till 7pm for the hot water to make an appearance. Am lucky in that I´ve had to have very few freezing showers.....just can´t live without hot water! Bed is lopsided and all my covers fall off overnight & they´re so heavy cos it´s freezing here, that it´s really hard work to pull them back on. I´m sure there´s some other stuff been going on....days melting together and I kind of forget things, which is where my little blog comes in handy ...old lady nearly got ran over the other day just as we got off our bus from Machu Picchu, I think she wanted money from us...but the sheer volume of people that ask and beg just makes you hard and I´m quite choosy with my causes....tough but true. Once one person sees you give something or buy something...they are all on you and you just have to walk away. Going on Lake trip tomorrow to floating islands, it´s overnight so back to blog on Monday.
P.S I don´t believe that Friday 13th has any special significance (smell was the only unlucky bit of my day) I don´t read my horoscope and I walk under ladders. Ha.

posted by Katie @ 2/14/2004 03:10:00 pm