This is NOT First Class

Our accommodations in Puno did not last through Sunday night so we had to hop on a bus that night to take us back to Cusco.  Until this point, we rode 1st class in the buses.  This cost us an extra $7 or so but it was worth it as we got nicer seats AND we were on the bottom floor of the bus where you can't feel the bus movement as much.  With how tall the buses are, we'd heard they could get a little rocky as you go up and down mountains causing nausea, heartburn, indigestion, upset stomach, diarrhea!! (did you sing the little jingle as you read that??)

As I mentioned, we rode first class until this point where our tour service booked our buses for us and did not book us first class.  To our delight, we found we had the very first row of seats in the entire bus!  This means we had an entire window in front of us.  Sadly, it was night and we couldn't really see anything out it anyways.  Noelle and I cuddled up and watched "The Last Song" on my laptop.  I fell in and out of sleep but she finished the entire thing.  And (since she refuses to blog about the end of Peru, I will bear her secrets on mine) she bawled like a baby at the end.  On a bus.  In the middle of the night.  In Peru.  I love her.

The sleep that I got during that movie turned out to be the best sleep I got that night.  I just could NOT get comfortable or fall asleep.  I think I may have slept for a total of two hours out of the 8 hour ride.  It was absolutely miserable.  The worst bus ride of Peru.  I definitely learned my lesson to ride in first class.  There were a few times I thought I was going to toss my cookies and I was prepared.  I had a bag ready and everything.  Oh, I'm glad I won't EVER have to do that again.

Well, we arrived in Cusco at 4:00 am...and we didn't have a hotel to go to.  Diego was incredibly kind to us and drove us around town to help us find a hostel to stay at.  We were broke at this point and wanted anything cheap for just a few hours.  We had to explain to Diego multiple times that we didn't even care if we each had a bed.  We could share beds since that's what we'd been doing for three months anyways.  After checking a few places (remember it's 4:00am) we finally found one that would let us 1) just get one room for four people and 2) Leave our stuff in the room until we had to leave Cusco that afternoon.

To say the place was sketchy is an understatement.  Nothing matched in the rooms.  No toilet seat.  Who knows when the sheets were last cleaned.  He did give us a free roll of toilet paper though!  Well, we didn't die from staying there and we all got a few good hours of sleep.

Sorry I don't know why we didn't get any pictures inside the actual room...but you can just imagine what it looked like :)

We spent the day walking around a cute little market, buying all the souvenirs we still wanted.  I bought way too much.  But I don't regret any of my purchases so I think that's a good sign :)

Diego picked us up and took us to the airport around 2:00.  We hopped on a plane headed to Lima and I realized that the mountains we flew over would be the last Peruvian mountains I would see.  It was a sad thought because I'd grown to love those mountains more than I can describe.  We just don't have mountains like them in the states!  It's the Andes, for crying out loud!!!  We got another snack box which made me an even happier flier.

What an adventure we had.  I was glad to be well on my way home after so much touring, but so grateful for the chance to see all the amazing things we did.