At the crack of dawn yesterday morning we loaded up the packs once again and headed out of La Paz – well to La Paz airport anyway. There we joined a queue, a long queue, where we waited, occasionally inching forward. They announced our flight was pre-boarding while we were still miles away from the front, but we were told to stay in the line. We noticed other people had departure cards, so Anna found them and we filled them out, along with another form the airline gave us. We finally managed to check in, pay out airport tax (you have to pay tax just about every time you travel anywhere in Bolivia) and made our way through immigration. There we got our bags searched for drugs (no comments please, everyone got searched), stood in more queues for immigration. It all took so long that there was barely time for a loo break before we boarded.
An hour later and we landed in Cusco – and were greeted with another slowly crawling queue for Peru’s immigration. We finally got to the front – where we were told that we had the wrong forms and they made us and one other woman stand to the side while they processed the whole rest of the plane first. Finally the immigration woman produced the correct form – which she had sitting there all along. We filled it out and finally got out of the airport.
Once past the frustration of getting here, Cusco is a really lovely city. The center is filled with beautiful old buildings and all sorts of great shops. We have chosen to stay in a hotel so that we are really relaxed ahead of the trek. It is also really good for Amy. She is really quite unwell and won’t be trekking with us (although she does get us to join us for the day to Macchu Pichu) so it is great that she has somewhere nice, warm and complete with room service and cable TV.
We headed out and found a nice lunch then found our tour office and paid for the tour etc. By then Amy was fading fast so Anna took her back to the hotel and I went for a bit of a wander through the streets of Cusco. It was really nice.
Today Amy spent a quiet day at the hotel, hopefully starting to get better, while I introduced Anna to the fantastic array of shopping opportunities I had discovered last night. We had a great time wandering, bargaining, etc. We also managed to stock up on Amy’s preferred medications. Unlike in our countries where a script is required, here you just head into the chemist and request your desired antibiotic etc. It is really quite useful when traveling.
Anna and I also found one of the many massage places and had fantastic hour long massages for 30 Soles (about $15). They certainly managed to get well stuck into the knots.
Anna and I are really enjoying the city and hope that Amy will soon be able to join us.
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