Pisco, Tuesday

1758 Come to Polleria La Fogata near hotel. After showering and clothes washing went down to reception and as price was reasonable (50PEN plus about 20PEN of entry fes) for a half day as Isla Ballasteras (sp) and another half day at national park signed up, need to be in reception 7am, didn't try any other tour agencies as suspect all same and the one mentioned in guide book way more expensive. Deliberately won't eat tomorrow morning just in case.

Then had brief walk but non-combat trousers bit uncomfortable with all the crap shoved in pockets and it's v hot. Went to Flores bus terminal as advised by hotel owner and they do indeed do many buses a day to Lima, I asked and it's 15PEN and 4.5h. Need to read up on Lima and book hotel tonight. Guy says I can get off bus at Puente Bsomething if I stay in Miraflores instead of near centre and save myself PEN25ish for 20 block taxi ride. Right now have not a clue where I should stay.

Was tempted to have a beer as hot and to help me continue to wind down but didn't, found supermarket with fruit (though was waiting ages at checkout as they were doing some kind of accounting) and took it back to hotel with some cold Inka Cola zero. Bit stuffed now actually but wanted to come out and eat before it got dark, may have beer or a Pisco Sour (seems appropriate) tomorrow night.

1821 Food not bad, quite decent portion, glad took account of stuffed feeling and didn't have a half chicken. While I remember, was at Andean Dreams Ho(s)tel in Cusco.

1829 Back at hotel. I gave a 2 tip but can't remember what the woman at cash desk actually said, ISTR 15 but I paid with a 20 and I'm not sure I got 5 change so maybe she short-changed me and I still gave a tip, probably OK though and sod it. Still light out, very odd quality to the light, didn't have camera with me and prob hard to capture anyway, I can only try to describe it badly by saying the sky was totally overcast and the light had this vague 'artificial daylight' quality.

1854 Yay, the wifi is just completely unusable on my netbook now, it was flaky but just about useable before I went out to dinner. Connection keeps dropping and even when it's there most of the time nothing flows. FFS.

Room a bit warm and dingy but meh, could be worse, apart from the bloody wifi. I really don't want to have to go sit down in reception to book a Lima hotel. Not that I've even started reading up on Lima in guide book yet. Oh, rereading the stuff about buses to Pisco I *still* think it's confusing, especially since I was afaik on a bus to Pisco, and it doesn't use the phrase 'Cruz de Pisco' but since in its usual convoluted unhelpful way it does sort of mention the issue I definitely won't bother pointing it out to them.

0126 Finally in bed. Have booked a hotel in Lima, went and sat in reception to do it. Then continued to vaccilate/research Galapagos Islands. Five responses on Lonely Planet all a) non wanky, a pleasant surprise b) say they've never seen anything. Have posted slightly altered version of question on tripadvisor forum. If going to do it should prob be booking soon. Getting bit jittery in general, am wondering if there's a risk here for example, or in say Quito or Guayaquil. Prob not. The one indirectly cheering thing is I found an extract from a Seychelles Lonely Planet guide which had a sidebar saying arachnophobes might not be comfortable as iirc just about every tree is covered with silk produced by some 10cm-though-harmless palm spider. So the absence of such a note in the Ecuador guide book may be evidence this isn't worth worrying about - or it may just be one author has more awareness of this than another. Didn't come back to room til gone midnight and had to shower and shave and need to be up 630, oh well. I can hear someone snoring across the hall. Wondering if should shut interior window to reduce spider access but ffs, this is paranoia, I have no reason to believe there's anything too terrifying here.