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After finishing our amazing Inca Trail, and some delightful showers back in the hotel our group went out for dinner. This was the first time i'd really seen Cuzco in all it's beauty, it's an amazing city! Anyway, we went out to dinner to a place our guide chose as it did the special food of peru...guinea pig! yuck!! I couldn't believe it when the poor little animal came out on a little plate, dead with it's claws still there right infront of me...the kosher one!! I wasn't amused!
After spending such a nice few days with everyone on Inca, it was sad to say bye to some of the group, however the most important person, Caroline, we managed to persuade to stay in Cuzco with us! The guy she was travelling with stayed in the hotel whereas we moved to a hostel called Loki where we discovered nearly every person that we had met along the way through out south america in the same place! All the bar staff from La Paz, the Irish Girls, our 18 yr old friends and members of the desert eagles, plus more! We spent an amazing week in Cuzco just chilling out and partying lots!
Our first night out we hit a club called Mama Africa which was tiny but a lot of fun. We went out in a big group with some Georgi lads and didn't get home until the early hrs of the morning (as per usual), but this time we really did have an excuse to party hard...celebrating our completion of the inca trail ha!
On the last day of our Inca i noticed that my sleeping bag wasn't in my duffell bag, I had to bring it to our guides attention in the hope it had just been confused with a hired one and accidently been sent back to the office. However, this wasn't the case. The night after our big night out, my guide Rebear turned up at the hostel with all 18 porters and the head porter to apologise for losing my bag! They had all travelled at least 3 - 4 hours just to apologise. The head porter explained to me that they were going to pay for a new one for me, however I was of course not happy with this. Although it was annoying to have lost the sleeping bag, especially after only using it for the first time during the Inca Trail, if they bought me a knew one it would cost them so much more than it would me. They work so hard for what little money they earn so i really wasn't comfertable with that however, the head porter really wouldn't take no for an answer so I ended up having to tell him that I never had a sleeping bag and that I had lied. He knew I was joking but I did eventually manage to convince him that they didn't need to replace the lost one and I would not complain to the company. I was so touched by the gesture of them all turning up that I gave them all a hug and a kiss and expressed how amazing they all were -such nice kind hearted people! So nice to meet so many nice people, it's a rareity these days!
Cuzco is so full of Israeli's that I did start to call it mini Israel. One Israeli guy in my hostel even convinced me to go to Chabad on Shabbat to get some meat which was much appreciated! Although there were 148 Israelis in the room and me basically, never felt more English in my life.
We discovered the most amazing club in Cuzco called ROOTS which i just fell in love with, best music and such a nice atmosphere, lots of dancing on bars. One night, myself and Kate went to Roots with two English guys who were staying in the same hostel as us, Chris and Mike. Anyway, they challeneged us to a dance off which of course we got very excited about and started coming out with a whole bunch of little routines obviously whipping their arses, they had nearly admitted defeat as a circle had emerged around the four of us and they were just too embarassed at how amazing we were, just as we thought they had given in as they had turned around to walk out the circle of fun they dropped to the floor and started doing press up! I have never laughed so hard, was hysterical. Once they jumped up a bunch of amazing breakdancers rocked up and started strutting their stuff putting us all to shame if i'm honest. But as a the whole club stood round the circle we were so impressed that we had started it all off, was a proper Run DMC moment and we loved it!
One day i went off with my Israeli friend Liran and Geordi friends John and Dave and took a wonder around a whole bunch of markets that Cuzco had to offer. They all sell the same things in terms of clothing and jewlerry but the one big one sells lots of fruit and meat. We were walking through this market when i nearly quite literally walked into a huge piece of meat...blood still on it and everything! I was nearly sick! uggghhh, didn't help that the boys found it ammusing so kept shuving it in my face...so thanks boys ha! NOT!
The Geordi boys were so funny, one night in Roots myself and John turned and looked at each other and both dropped to the floor and started doing rolly pollys across the dance floor, i even did a backward one. Such good times.
On the Saturday night the hostel had a themed night of Lokistock - Musicians, dead and alive. We decided to go as rock chicks, but it ended up being Blondie and her back up singers, me being Blondie ha! Was such a giggle. Four Israeli guys came in full blown outfits, and dressed up as Barnie, Hello Kitty, Tigger and a Bull, was so funny.
Cuzco really is such a beautiful city, i really enjoyed wondering around and discovering new corners everyday. It was such a bonus that there were so many people we knew there, just made our last week in South America. We also discovered a magical restaurant called The Real McCoy which served all traditional English food...OMG it was amazing! The girls all managed to get a sunday roast their and i found a jacket potato. I know that sounds strange but seriously know where in south america knows what a jacket potato is and well, it's a very important food to me ha!
We decided to stay in Cuzco right up until our flight to New Zealand and not spend time in Lima as we had heard it wasn't really worth the visit. Leaving Cuzco was sad, especially saying goodbye to Caroline. I actually cried. But thankfully there was 14 of us catching the same 22.5 hour bus to Lima from Cuzco so that journey was made a bit more fun.
Our journey from Lime to Cuzco was the start of the week from hell - 5 days travelling straight, no bed or shower for 5 days! You can only imagine how bad it was.
After our bus ride ro Lima (where again I did not receive the Veggie food i had ordered, they just don't understand the term veggie here, they think there is something wrong with me because i don't eat the meat) we went straight to the airport with our Irish friend James who was flying to the states about hf hr after us so we all caught a cab together. James sneezed and the driver asked him to sneeze outside the window next time because of swine flu. ooooops! So in our 6 hr wait in Lima airport the three of us sat night ate some food (a few tims ha) and James presented us both with a present...a marble! He had been carrying around a small bag of marbles during his years travelling and gave them away to his favourtie people, he gave them us telling us 'don't lose your marbles'! Needless to say this kept us amused for quite a while! Our flight happened to be right next to the flight to Mexico which well, was empty due to swine flu outbreak but it did have a few people paniced whilst waiting in the departure lounge. Our flight to Buenos Aires through the night took about 4.5 hours and then we had a 19 hour wait in Buenos Aires before our flight to Auckland.
Thank god my friend Alissa from home was flying into BA the same day but from Australia so we managed to leave the airport, got me a cheeky Kosher McDonalds and headed back to the airport. Our flight to Auckland was horrendous. Firstly, I have never been in darkness for so many hours of my life. Everytime i looked out the window of the plane it was still dark, and then the plane didn't have personal TV's but one big one at the front which we of course couldn't see and was playing rubbish films! We were not happy! Landing in Auckland was a brilliant moment.....and was made better when Kate was asked to take her mask off (she actually bought a mask to protect herself from getting swine flu, to be fair, the majority of people in BA airport were wearing them, i refused because well...it just wasn't conveniant ha). Getting off the plane and hearing the words "Good Morning" was incredible, I was just like, OMG English...not heard that for a while!!
SO that's the end of our adventures in South America. Very sad to have left but it was such an amazing three months, went far to quickly but i will remember it has 3 of the most amazing and ridiculous amount of fun ever!!
Miss you all....(i am catching up on my blog, so New Zealand is on its way, promise)
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