Day One: Sort Of

It's difficult for me to succinctly summarize how the last 24 hours has been. I was so incredibly thankful to get off my flight to Miami that I couldn't really think about much more. As much as I love traveling and experiencing new places, I'm not an awesome flier. I actually kind of hate it, but I recognize that it's a crucial part of international travel. My problems are that I have a hard time sitting in the same position, I get antsy, I'm not patient when others are fidgety, and I have to be exhausted to fall asleep on a plane. So, you know, I'm obviously awesome on long trips.

When I landed in Miami I was so excited to be on the ground and not sharing a seat with a stranger any more. By the way, I forgot to mention in my last post that said stranger coughed every couple minutes the whole flight. So, not only did I experience the shaking of his entire body on a regular basis, but I also had the benefit of potential catching all of his germs. 

Miami was challenging because I had a five hour layover that turned into six, which meant that I had to stay up until 2:00 AM, and I had been awake since 5:15 AM. Those conditions do not make a happy Katie. But the benefit of that happening is that I passed out on the plane before we even took off. All I remember of that flight was being awoken at 3:30 AM for an in-flight meal (a full chicken dinner), finishing it, and waking up again 20 minutes before we touched down. I can owe my ability to sleep like this on the plane to exhaustion, a Dramamine, and my altitude medicine. 

Because my flight to Lima was delayed by an hour I missed my flight to Cusco. Strangely, I was wicked chill about it. I think it's because I knew the airline would put me on another flight and it's not like I had a deadline for anything. I ended up being put on a flight that arrived in Cusco about an hour after I was originally supposed to, but it worked out grand because my hostel room wasn't going to be ready before then anyway. 

Once I reached my hostel (after paying entirely too much for a taxi, but as Melissa said - I paid a fee commensurate to its value at the time) I crashed for about an hour. I tried to rally, but I was just so entirely spent. Plus, I could almost immediately feel the effects of the elevation. My apartment in Rochester is at right about 500 feet, whereas my hostel in Cusco is at 11,000 feet. So yeah, my body keeps asking me, "what the fuck, Katie??" I know the altitude medicine is helping, but at the same time if I walk up a flight of stairs my heart pounds for about 5 minutes after.  Almost everything I've read focuses on taking your time, relaxing, taking the altitude meds, hydrating, and then drinking coca tea. I haven't had the tea yet, but everyone swears by it. Even the guy at Passport Health told me about it as an option. 

So, as an attempt to take all of the advice, I've walked around a little bit today, but I've also sat and watched people a lot. Here are a few picture from my first day (aka: my first 5 hours in Peru).

 

Waking up to the Andes was breathtaking. It is phenomenal that people ever settled in these lands. The topography is so striking because it looks exactly like a topographical map, which I know sounds kind of assanine, but I was still surprised how steep the mountains were and how there are practically no valleys between the peaks.

 

I ate lunch at a restaurant in the Plaza de Armas and you can see what a dump this place is. LOL  I couldn't have asked for a better view and it was 68 degrees so my late lunch was all open air. 

 

This was my lunch. I decided I needed something substantial to rebound from all the travel stress. It was really tasty, but I call BS on that steak really being beef. It was enjoyable, but I have never tasted beef quite like that... 

 

This is the hill back to my hostel. My poor little heart required me to climb at a glacial pace. 

 

There are dogs everywhere throughout Cusco. I was warned about not petting stray dogs, but I don't think most of these did are strays. They're generally well fed and taken care of and they all seem to get along. Additionally, they couldn't be less interested in humans, which surprised me. They don't beg or sniff around the humans at all. 

I'm starting to get cold - the temperature is dropping with the setting sun. The wifi is stronger outside of my room, so I've been sitting outside and writing. I'm going to cap it for now. Tomorrow should get more exciting because Melissa arrives!! See you on the flip flop.