So, to be expected, plans slightly changed. On Saturdy evening, I met two locals who were also planning on vacationing in the jungle for 5 days. They invited us to join rather than go off by ourselves to Santa Teresa, which they commented as not being the best introduction to the Amazon anyways. I told the guys that I would run the idea by Peter and see if he wanted to spend half of our remaining time in the Amazon Basin with two strange guys I just met. After exchanging contact info, I met back up with Peter and asked him what he thought. He agreed we should at least check if the guys were still interested, so we delayed our departure and sent an e-mail. Either I copied their e-mail down wrong, they didn´t check their messages, or they decided they didn´t want to bring along 2 gringos after all, because we haven´t heard back. So nevermind about that whole jungle thing. It´ll have to wait until my next South American trip!
To be honest, it worked out for the best that we stayed an extra day in Cusco. Peter and I both woke up rather homesick and burnt out yesterday. As anticipated, the ´´hip´´ hostel downtown drove us up the wall so we returned to the quiet, simple hostel up on the hill in San Blas. We refreshed our spirits with some food from home, courtesy of Jack´s Cafe, and sat down with a young French couple last night to watch a movie. Too funny to have to change the language from Spanish to English and put on French subtitles. Taking a day to just sit and relax was needed and much appreciated.
Homesickness is a feeling I´m used to, but I never understand why I get it. It makes sense why it happens; your body and mind miss the familiar. But especially when I´m on these relatively short trips, it irritates me that my mind can´t get on board with the fact that the scenery is different only for a brief time. It was comforting to know that Peter´s hit at the same time and that a day was sufficient to say how much we miss our families and talk about what we´ll do when we return home. For the two of us, it was sad to miss Thanksgiving at home, especially since both our families wrote us saying what a good time was had. We´ll just have to make up for it during the December holidays I guess! Plus, I wouldn´t trade that day on Machu Picchu to be back home; there will be many more years of spending time with family and friends, and this year was remarkably special.
Today, we´ll be finding a bus to take us south to Puno on the edge of Lake Titicaca. Should be a long ride, but Peter and I brought plenty of reading material. The drive is supposed to be beautiful too, although very cold when going over the mountains.
Until next time!
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