Leaving Lima! Heading to Cuzco!

Good afternoon!

 

Ozell and I are waiting to depart to the bus station for our 20 hour bus ride to Cuzco/Cusco, Peru.  We had another good time in the hostel here in Lima yesterday, and met a few other gay guys in the hostel.  We took them out with us last night.  We had the intention of checking out a different club we hadn't already been to, but one of the locals, who appears to just hang around the hostel waiting for gay guys to come through,  convinced us to go to Vale Todos which is the same club Ozell and I went to this past Saturday.  It obviously was not as busy since it was a Wednesday, but it still had a good crowd, and we had fun there.  I was able to see Samuel again which was a very nice surprise.  Samuel is the young, local man I met on Saturday and then visited on Sunday.  He was there with a couple of his friends.  I like Sam and hope to stay in touch with him.  He is going to the States starting in December.  :)

 

I think we are both excited to move on with our trip.  Lima may have had the best night life that we will see for a while, but that is not what we came to South America for.  lol  Plus, I am sure Santiago, Cordoba, Buenos Aires, Montevideo, and Rio will all be nice spots to party a few nights.  Cuzco is our jumping off point for Machu Picchu, and then we will head down to Lake Titicaca and La Paz, Bolivia.

 

Oh, it appears that coke is more common here than water and about as cheap.  I have not partook of any myself and suspect that I won't in the future, but it is definitely the drug of choice amongst many of the travelers in the hostel and in South America in general from what we have heard and see ourselves.

 

I have been able to score some 420 and made my first "apple bong" so I could enjoy a smoke.  I do not like joints and cannot roll them.  Thankfully, another American names Josh, reminded me that about anything could be made into a bong.  He was using an apple a couple of nights ago, and I decided to copy him the last couple of days.

 

I gave away the remaining weed I had because I will not travel with it.  I sure could use some with this 20 hour bus ride coming up.  lol

 

Ozell and I have made some friends here in the hostel.  Rob (Irishman), Neil (Scotsman), and Freek (Belgian) have been the ones we have hung around the most, but there have been many others too.  We hope to meet up with Freek again in Cuzco.  He took the 2pm bus.  We are taking the 5:30pm bus.  We should arrive tomorrow around 1:30pm.  That is if our bus doesn't rollover into a canyon in the Andes.  It seems fatal accidents are somewhat frequent on the mountain roads we have to travel.  :(

 

I have also learned that everyone has been robbed at least once while traveling South America.  Many people have been robbed more than once.  The consensus is that is just part of the cost of traveling, and I had a easy time of it so far.  Other people have been robbed at gun point and have had everything but the clothes they were wearing taken from them.  :(  I don't know if I like the fact that literally everyone we have talked to who has been traveling in South America for any extended period of time has been robbed.  That is not a could stat for tourism.  We did learn that most of the thieves are considerate enough to give you the memory card out of your camera when they take it if you can ask for it in Spanish.  I guess that is part of the local thieves' code of conduct.  LOL.

 

Well, I am going to get offline again.  I'll write about the bus journey after we arrive and recoup in Cuzco.  We are going from sea level to 12,000 feet so we might take a couple of days to adjust to the altitude.

 

Cheers to you all,

 

Sean