Today is on the road. Wake up around 7am, have breakfast, upload photos, blog entries for a couple hours in my hotel room. Then, go out for lunch. My stomach is till not a 100%, so I want to eat something not as adventurous. Go back to the same restaurant I ate with the Bermuda girl last night. Their lunch menu set for the day looks pretty decent, with a potato appetizer, soup, a chicken with rice, and some kind of lemonade drink. I have a cup of coca tea too. It's really pretty good for 8 Soles. I need a big lunch anyway, since my bus to Arequipa is for 3:30pm - 9:00pm, after checking in the hotel, I don't think I would go out and eat again. I pass by some bakery shops and get two pastries in case I am hungry on the bus.
Still get an hour before heading to the bus stop, so I Visit the coca & custom museum, where I watch a quite interesting video about their fiesta dances, with different names and costumes. Learn more about the coca leaves - the sacred plants for the Andeans. Then, I head to the bus stop. What do I know? I bump into the french couple who was on the same islands tour with me, we also bumped into each other at dinner last night. Today, we are the same bus again, the third time. If I see them again, I think they are stalking me.
The bus is really fancy actually, I am sitting upstairs in the front, with the big window in front of me, but I close the blind most of them anyway because of the late afternoon sun, and I am watching the movies on the TV next to my feet. They play 3 movies for the 5 and a half journey, and I watch them all. The first one is called Dreamer, oh god, almost get tears in my eyes. It's about a girl, a horse, a dream, I guess. It's a good movie, but I hate to watch this kind of movie on a plane, bus or in a public place where I have to hold my tears back. At some point of the movie, I have to look outside the window, and hold my tears back, chill, don't come out. Silly. The other two are Little Man (kind of a stupid movie), and Red Eye (kind of a intense thriller). I want to write my blog during they play Little Man, they have wi-fi on the bus too, I am amazed. But I don't want to block of the view for the girl next to me, so I close my computer and watch the movie as well. The road is bumpy on and off anyway.
I am really impressed with this deluxe bus company Cruz del Sur, there are also a dinner box with a sandwiches and cake, and drink in the middle of the ride, it's almost like a plane ride, better than United at least. After 6:30pm, it gets pretty dark outside. There is no light in the highway, we are driving down from some Andean mountain areas to a lower altitude areas, I mean without seeing what both sides of the road are, just pitch dark and with the bus flying. I can't allow myself to imagine further. If I can, I will not take another bus. It's also a pain to bargain for taxi with a huge backpack on your back at night. The french asks me if I want to take the taxi together to the main plaza. My hotel is just a few blocks off the plaza anyway. It's Halloween, turns out the Peruvians take Halloween much more serious than we do. Or at least they love to party. Traffic is horrible everywhere, taxi raises their price, everyone on the street are masked or painted on the face, there are even fireworks!? I see from afar just before the bus arrives at the station.
Anyway, get the hotel safely around 10:00pm. The hotel looks really cute, I have to share some pictures on my photo albums. The room is good side for one person, with cable TV, wi-fi, a dresser I can walk in, some nice painting on the wall. The outside is pretty handsome too. It's slightly more expensive, US$28 a night, more than my planned range: US$15-25. But oh well, I come all the way down there, might as well enjoy it. Watch another horror movie on TV before heading to bed, my 4th movie of the day!
Photos here: Day 33
