9-20 (Saturday)



We were up at 4 a.m. to get ready for our 5 a.m. pick up to the airport. We went around to several hotels and picked up others. We got to the airport before the ticket counter opened but we were first in line!



We flew into Lima and literally had to run for our flight to Cuzco. First we had to stand in a long line to pay our departure fee and then run along the tarmac to the plane. We were the last ones on. Our luggage didn't´t make the fight but it came in on the next flight about 5 minutes later. There was a guy from the hostel to pick us up. Two snotty girls from San Diego were in the van with us. It was a long way to the hotel but it was in a good location, about a block or two from the city center. The hostel was rather basic but quaint. At least we had a bathroom that we could turn around in. They gave us cocoa tea as soon as we arrived to help with altitude sickness.



We had a lot of organizing of our future plans to do. We walked down the narrow cobble street towards the square. We saw a cute restaurant and stopped in for lunch. When we go to the square we ran in to check our email to see if we had a message from a hotel we´re trying to book in Puno. We walked down to the LAN office and booked a flight from Cuzco to Lima ($144.) We have a flight from La Paz to Lima but because of the unrest there we´re not going. They are charging Americans $140 just to cross the border.







On the way back to the hostel we stopped at a pharmacy and I bought some medicine for my stuffed up nose. We went to a travel agency to book our trip to Machu Picchu, our trip to Lake Titicaca and our trip tomorrow to the Sacred Valley. It was here that I got hit with altitude sickness. I went over and stretched out on a bench in the office while Barbara did all the work. I was so sick I couldn´t walk back to the hotel. Barbara ran back to the pharmacy and bought some pills for altitude sickness. Valentine, a guy from the agency, flagged a taxi. He and Barbara helped me into the hostel. I was freezing. I crawled under four wool blankets with my clothes on including a sweater and my fleece. I drank some more cocoa tea and took a pill. I told Barbara she´d better put the trash can near the bed. It wasn´t long before I tossed my cookies three times. Barbara had the staff come in and turn on the heart because I was shaking. By this time she had altitude sickness but only the headache. I got up around 10 p.m. and put on my jammies.