Well, I made it to Peru after all the pre-trip passport problems and second thoughts about the whole thing. God knows how though... The night before travelling I hardly slept and when I did drop off I had horrific dreams of exploding like a weak-skinned frankfurter on the plane thanks to a DVT episode (despite my carefully purchased and very flattering travel socks).
On arrival in Lima - after a harrowing few hours at Miami where I thought the security guard might cart me off as my hiking boots, which I had to remove, could have been confused for some sort of new lethal "dirty bomb" given the whiff coming off them - I could not find any smiling man with a sign to meet me and I suddenly realized that I had no Lima contact no. Thankfully, all the things they say about welcoming and kindly Peruvians is absolutely true and some guys from another tour company rang the Cusco person for me and obtained a Lima number and dragged some poor soul from his bed to take me to my hotel for the night - an unassuming little place opposite the bizarrely named restaurant Norky´s. No chance to explore Lima as it was gone midnight and I had to be up early in the morning for the Cusco flight.
Anyway, I´m going on a bit, so back to business. I flew into Cusco on a beautiful morning and the view coming in was every bit as breathtaking as I´d been promised. My host family were there to meet me and thankfully for their sanity and the sake of my pathetic Spanish they do speak some English. I´ll talk some more about them soon as they warrant an entry in their own right, but suffice it to say, I am very happy with them and my first tour around Cusco left me feeling very lucky to be spending time in such a spectacular place. I promise I´ll master the art of uploading some photos so you can see just what I mean before too long.
First day at the Spanish school was a bit like everyone´s recurring nightmare about going into an exam, turning over the paper and realizing that you revised for history but are having to take a physics exam. A first for me - I couldn´t even get through the whole paper - so it looks like I´ll be in the dummies´group -HO-HUM.
Time to go off for my first afternoon of humiliation, so wish me luck and drop me a line and I hope the next entry will be more interesting.
