First Impressions

Well, I've been here for 8 days now and thought its about time to get started with this blog. My first few days were a little overwhelming to say the least. I started my travels on May 8th around 10pm. I took four trains to get to New York, a flight from JFK to San Salvador, San Salvador to Lima, a 12 hour layover in Lima, followed by a flight from Lima to Cusco. After 36 hours of travel and almost 48 hours of being awake, I made it. ¡¡¡WOO HOO!!! I did manage to doze off briefly in JFK but it was under a CNN TV, so needless to say it was not restful. (Sugar plum faeries move aside for war, famine, terrorist plots and wildfires!) I did also manage to get a load on at the bar in the Lima airport while watching an acoustic Eric Clapton video (what else is there to do during a 12 hour layover??). Peruvians like Eric Clapton in the way Germans like David Hasselhoff!

After I arrived in Cusco I was picked up at the airport by a wonderful stranger named Carlos Zevallos. I met him through www.couchsurfing.com (check it out!!) Not only did he meet me at the airport, but gave me a key to his apartment and is letting me stay for as long as I want. (Just for the record, I only spent about 30 minutes with him total. He took off for Cuba the following day and won´t be back until the 31st) So I had the place to myself for a few days, but now we have a couchsurfer from Argentina and one from France (United Nations Cusco style). During my first day here I went out and explored the city for a few hours, came back, took a shower (more on that later!) and then passed out for 17 hours. I woke up the next day in a daze. It was probably a combination of lack of sleep, too much sleep, dehydration, and altitude (Cusco is around 11,000 feet about sea level). Some people get altitude sickness really bad (anything from nausea and vomiting to high altitude cerebral edema) I was mostly just short of breath while walking up hills (there are a lot of them here). All of this combined with all sorts of unusual sights, smells, sounds and people made my first few days here a whirling, fuzzy, beautiful blur. I wouldn't have had it any other way :)