0327 Started to feel better after surfing a bit but feeling a bit trapped and edgy again now. This bites. But I know it's just temporary. Pretty sure I've had it other times, but it is possible the thinner air combined with anxiety pushes me a bit more into very slight 'aaargh, can't breathe' feeling which makes it worse. I certainly passed a baddish night in IIRC Puno in 2010, despite having passed weeks at high altitude, But it is probably largely just psychological, worries about tour etc, and I will doubtless feel better tomorrow. But right now I don't like the bed, there is a bit of metal inside the pillow which chinks annoyingly, the pillow seems to smel a little too and I am not super overjoyed at the thought of two more nights here after tour, but it's all OK really. And wrt altitude as I said in previous entry if anything that's not something to get worked up about as I'm going down tomorrow.
0813 Stood outside locked up tour office. Wearing delightfully damp clothes as in that frigid room 24h evidently not sufficient to dry them. Daypack weighs heavy on shoulder but mostly due to 2 litres of water. Bit hungry but what can you do?
0828 Dashed across to shop and bought couple of packets of crisps. Back at office was open, got inconveniently large envelope with two laser-printed train tickets and ditto MP entrance ticket. Guzzled crisps.
0930 Wow, we're at Willka Pukara Andean Handicraft Workshop for twenty minutes. Be still my beating heart. Maybe I'll buy an empanada, but would it spoil my lunch?
0935 Yeah, I bought one, resisted the novelty of alpaca, went for ham and cheese. Not bad.
1157 Slightly harried but not too bad hourish tour of archaeological site at Pisac. Impressive views, also got chance to see a terraced mountainside fairly close up (if not, alas, to walk on one) and as guide pointed out they look like steps from a distance but they're actually 4-5m high.
1223 Completely tedious and pointless stop at some local silver market. Not a fucking clue when we leave here, despite guy having said it in English as well. Might be 1245, not sure. Just standing by the bus, I have zero interest in silver jewellery and there's nothing particularly to see. Personally I'd rather have had this time at archaeological site as there were a few side paths etc didn't go down and it was all just a bit rushed, but what can you do. Not even clear when lunch is.
1348 Lunch. What a fucking joke. We have 40 mins, prob cos of fuckwits doddering back to bus earlier. The buffet line STRETCHES OUT OF THE FUCKING RESTAURANT. I'm standing here in the spitting rain. Fan fucking tastic.
Why the fuck did we have to waste 30 minutes at the shitty silver market?
1434 Got food eventually, staff serve you some dishes to stop you taking too much, and by time I realised I needed rice I was past that point and had to risk wrath of queue by doubling back. No free tables, I could have shared but wasn't in mood (not helped by one fucking couple sitting at opposite ends of a six seater table like a cartoon king and queen) so I stood up and guzzled it down with a teaspoon. The queue eased off so I managed to go round three times. The food was OK but not a great selection. I take comfort in fact lack of a table meant they didn't get a chance to sell me a cold drink and earn any more off me. Had a cup of mate de coca though hot water ran out so I actually had 0.25 of a cup then about 0.5 of another cup I didn't have time to finish as we seemed to be leaving. Took photo of place name but not mentioning it here.
Bit worried about missing train but I guess that is not my problem. The group is evidently a mishmash of people on different tours and I am a bit concerned we are going to be left to fend for ourselves once we are on the train. Since I didn't know the name of my hostel until this morning I didn't look it up on the net and hence have no idea where it is. It will be OK, push comes to shove can get taxi, but would hope this is just me worrying and won't be left to own devices.
Fell asleep on drive from silver market to here. Not a problem, just mentioning it. Don't think that's why I was in a bad mood at queue etc, I felt OK (if looking forward to lunch cos hungry) as we arrived at restaurant.
1650 Pan pipe version of 'My Way' just played on train... They took my ticket off me when I got on but I took a photo of it first, the train magazine thing suggests this is an Inca Rail train, I believe a few companies operate services.
1703 Skorpion's "Winds of Change" now on pan pipes. This is obviously what the train magazine refers to as "the life-affirming instrumental music of the Andes". I probably shouldn't sneer; apart from lack of leg room at the table-not-airline seating the train is quite nice, this is business class IIRC, fk knows what it cost me. We get a free snack and a drink apparently.
1746 Stopped to wait for another train to pass. Will write up earlier later but I asked guide and basically someone will meet us (me and a Chilean couple called Felipe and Francia, we shared a tuktuk to the train station) at the station in Aguas Calientes, so we're not left too much to our own devices.
1815 Met woman from hotel, waiting for F&F. Didn't sit with them as a Chilean woman making up the four at our table asked me to swap with her boyfriend who was in seat B31. Not a problem, just mention it as matter of trivia. Likewise I am known frequently here as 'Steven Graham' since presumably some cross-cultural confusion causes them to not perceive my surname as 'important' when they see my passport or small copy thereof.
1830 In room. We are meeting guide in reception at 7, presumably just to discuss tomorrow morning. The room is sort of OK but there's a fucking spider on the doorframe of the bathroom door, not a huge one but still. As we were walking from station to hotel we passed through a market and out of corner of my eye I saw a huge tropical nightmare kind of spider in a frame. I don't think I thought even for a second it was alive but I don't like the though that it might in any event be a representative of the local fauna.
I am wondering if I should just smash that one on the doorframe with my shoe, but it's borderline tolerable size, I am too fucking nice to relish the idea of killing it and also right now it's just sat there, if I try to smash it and miss I could be in a worse state. I've had a peer round under the beds and although there is a dangling thing under one of the beds it is not enormous. The room is decidedly on the grubby and under-decorated side but it does have a private bathroom and is moderately large.
No, that fucking spider has moved and seems to have gone into the 5mm gap between the doorframe and wall where I had already noticed several cohorts or their corpses reside. Still, perhaps all the more reason not to go whacking the doorframe with a shoe lest I trigger a mass exodus of the fuckers. Decidedly suboptimal but it will be OK, I will sleep in the bed furthest from there as well. Oh for a methrin-based insecticide.
1855 Cunts. Guide turned up early, went down to see her. My bus ticket to MP tomorrow isn't included; I could swear they saId it was. That's 10 fucking dollars. But the real icing on the cake is I have to make my own way to the bus station and get the bus and meet the guide at the entrance to MP. Yay. Still, you pay over two hundred dollars you don't expect decent service. I have to be at the bus terminal at 645 instead of 7 thanks to having to buy a ticket, I have to meet the guide at 745. Not her fault and I tried not to let my irritation show with her but I'm seriously fucked off with those cunts at the tour office. Also given the need to locate the fucking bus terminal myself (Mana's Eres Mi Religion playing) in reality I probably need to leave the hotel about 6am. My train back is not til 630pm, MP closes 6, the walk down (which they never said was included on bus) takes 1.5h (2h to walk up), apparently the guided tour takes 2h. So fascinating or not as the site may be, I expect I'm going to have my fill of it before I get home tomorrow. Oh, and you're only allowed to take 1 or 2kg of 'baggage' into the park so I will have to leave my bag in a locker at the entrance - that only costs 5 soles however. I assume I have to get myself back to the train station and I have no fucking idea what will happen when I arrive in Owhatsit on the train, I guess I just hope there is a bus waiting.
I am wondering if it's worth complaining when I am back in Cusco. On the one hand, I didn't think the meal tonight was included, and the prices here are a bit steep. On the other hand, why not have a polite but firm go, if I get my ten dollars refunded it's all good (obviously I can't get anything back for the shittiness of having to make my own way to MP) and if I can't at least I will have tried.
I hope F&F don't turn up while I'm eating, don't want to join them or for them to feel compelled to be friendly with me.
Guide said I should take a poncho, she showed me where to buy a disposable one - when the owner turned up five minutes later - across from this resaurant. (Place is Sumaq Mijuna Wasi.)
1921 Back at hotel. Left 3 tip on table since guessed would have cost about that for food. Not happy at all. Also, since you're only allowed 5kg baggage on train I couldn't have brought my main bag, even had I not been concerned I'd end up lugging it around. So I'm here with just my daypack. Now it turns out even that is 'too big' for MP. So what, I'm going to spend the day with a carrier bag containing a bottle of water, if I'm even allowed to take such lethal items in. How many fucking different bags am I supposed to be travelling with? Do they expect me to have two small backpacks with me?
1934 OK, the handwritten thing from the tour company is unintelligible re what's included but I may have a polite firm go at them anyway and see if it works as what do I have to lose. The sheet of paper the guide gave me says the restriction on backpacks is 20 litres, not weight. Mine I am virtually certain is 15 litres. I think I will chance taking it and if they cut up rough put the 'excess' items in a binbag (I brought one with me, half intending to use it as an emergency poncho) and put that in a locker (I am hoping this is a gym style locker not a cloakroom deal where my bag might be tampered with). I could leave the binbag here at the hotel but then that's just adding shit to deal with.
I am seriously torn about going out for a beer. I didn't intend to but there's no wifi and the early start notwithstanding I can't go to bed this early. I was just planning to read quietly in my room but frankly I'm not in the mood. I don't want to drink angry but I am not too incandescent right now. There are mosquitoes in the room too (no hook to hang a net on, not that I brought the one I've been lugging about ever since 2010, it's in my main bag back in Cusco).
Sod it, a litre isn't going to hurt, I have been drinking too much lately but I do also have abstemious periods and fuck it, I'm not sitting around in this room with just the spiders and mosquitoes for company. Also, just maybe I will reflect further over a beer on the hideously overcomplex logistics of going to Machu Piccu. The above does sound like a plan though.
Woo - I just thought, I can't check as I don't have wifi or an app installed to do the calculation - but it could well be dark at 0600 tomorrow as I wander out in a desperate attempt to locate the bus terminal. (Also, while I was already planning on not going out Sat night after Wednesday, I could have imagined my resolve slipping, but an 0600 start combined with being on my feet all day and not getting back til probably 2100 should help remove some temptation. The room in Cusco is by no means great but it only has one resident spider and there's wifi. So there's another making it up as I go along reason why it's OK to go have a drink tonight.)
Fucking hell, there's a big (big-in-the-UK standard, not tropical horror, grateful for small mercies) spider behind one of the three curtains in the room, the one I hadn't looked behind so far. Nothing I can do about it really. At home I'd spray the fucker, here it's splat or ignore and I'm not stirring any shit up unnecessarily. Definitely sleeping with the lights on tonight...
2002 At Rasta Bar simply because it's virtually next to the hotel. Expensive at 20 for a litre; it was only 16 where I had dinner but a) I wanted to shower before drinking, if I was going to drink - that's gone by the way, I may or may not shower when I get back, I expect to sweat myself disgusting tomorrow anyway so it hardly matters and b) I didn't and don't want to encounter F&F and since they will be going there for the included dinner that's a significant possibility.
The beer is Pilsen Callo, actually 1.1 litres. As always it's virtually impossible to read the ABV since it's in microscopic print on the back and it's too dark to see properly. Not rammed in here, downstairs me and two guys playing pool, can see there is an upstairs but why would I bother going up there?
2026 There's a cat here, which I think is the first nice thing I've had to say about Aguas Calientes. It might have let me stroke it but it seems in a funny mood and the last thing I need now is a bite.
2032 Wow, two cats. One's grey and white, the second seems a bit fluffier and is ginger and white.
24h from now I will be nearly back in Cusco. And in less than 10h I will have left that hotel room behind never to return.
2114 Phone is dog slow lately, fuck knows why. Anyway, back at hotel. Sounds like it's raining heavily but maybe the tiny walk back from bar was somehow under cover. I just hope it stays dry tomorrow morning at least until I get to MP.
Enormous bloated feeling developed towards end of beer, I did perhaps force the last glass down rather as somehow felt in hurry to leave, felt quite painful for a bit but has eased now.
2127 There is hot water so may have a shower. FWIW though I've hardly been unbiased or seen a huge amount of it I rather get the impression Aguas Calientes is a tiny little shithole which exists only because tourists have little choice but to come here. It could have a certain rough and ready charm if it wasn't so outright tourist oriented and just a small town.
2138 Oh, if didn't already say it, naturally both beds are nowhere near a mains socket to charge phone. Not going in shower yet, waiting for phone to charge a bit first as may take it to bed (not on Scribd, of course) and rely on it lasting when it turns itself off, plus I do have a spare battery which should be fully charged.
2144 Listening to some music (standing by socket) as wait for phone to charge. Dave Goulder's "Last Train" while totally unrelated in general makes me think of that feeling I had last night at 2am. Anyway, bus for today's trip was v like the one on the Colca Canyon tour, a slightly small coach, not a minibus. We went to Owhatsit archaeological site after lunch and before the three of us with 430 train tickets got train. I was bit worried about missing it so was bit extra harried but was quite interesting. Some people had tickets for 7 train. I guess they'd have missed the views, they were interesting if not ultra spectacular.
Woo, the phone is in arsey mode and deciding the charger is unsafe and 'not original'. Cunting piece of shit.
Listening to Carter USM's cover of The Smiths' "Panic" reminds me of Jon. Be nice to catch up with people on my return. Am still slightly heartened on setting reminders for (admittedly iirc a week after my return) to see they are 40-odd days in the future. Holiday's not over yet and I am determined to sweep away a certain amount of shit from my day-to-day life when I return.
2154 Sounds like it's pissing it down. Weather forecast for MP couple of days ago was rain/thunderstorms all week. Today generally quite sunny in Sacred Valley, few spots of rain at lunch but nothing too heavy.
2222 Should say today's guide (unrelated to tomorrow's guide) was fairly good, despite my general dissatisfaction with the time allocation and lunch. He did seem to get a bit arsey about people not listening and dropped speaking in English after a while, but in a way it was nice because I could understand 95% of what he said and it was a bit wearing listening to everything twice.
2232 Had shower which was pleasantly hot. If they'd just clean the corners of the room so it wasn't infested with spiders I'd consider this a passable (though no wifi a killer, how *surprising* that the only places which don't have it are those which come bundled with a tour so there's no market pressure) cheap (well, fuck knows what I'm actually paying) hotel.
The treacherous thought occurs to me that since I have been left to my own fucking devices tomorrow, if I get up ultra late (eg 9am) all I miss is the guided tour. I still have to fart around getting to MP myself. I can still get the same train back and the bus back to Cusco. Now, I don't intend to do this. I've paid for the fucking guide, the guided tour may be interesting and if not modulo tiredness/lack of supplies I have hours there after the tour to wander around solo. In the past I've found myself too short of time at archaeological sites, while I am in part just hacked off about everything, I do worry that tomorrow will just be too much time in a bleak 'no water unless you return to the entrance' desert, no matter how interesting. But we will see, and I do intend to be up in time to fart around enormously getting to MP in time for the tour.
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