Cusco to Miraflores

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After not getting to bed until midnight and waking up yesterday at 3.50am I wasn't too happy when the alarm when off at 7am this morning. Although I was glad we had done all of our packing the night before, it was still a struggle to get out of bed. Our taxi pickup for the airport was at 8.15am so we had some time to get ready and go for a quick breakfast before checking out. We'd put our backpacks into the flight bags early and added our hiking boots too as we no longer needed to carry them in our hand luggage in case our main bags got lost. We manhandled them to reception just in time for the taxi driver to appear and call me Katty Button again 😊 Our bags were carried into the taxi and we were on our way to the airport. It seemed to take. Along time as there was lots of traffic but we arrived about 8.25am in the end and stood in the bag check in line when we spotted just behind us were the couple from Mexico who had been in the other group on the trek. We had a brief chat and said our goodbyes before handing our bags over at checkin then heading through security. We only had a short wait and a gate change before we were queuing up to board our flight to Lima. The flight was a complete mixture of people, there was a really cute old couple dressed in what looked to be their Sunday best carrying carrier bag fulls of local bread they'd bought in Cusco to take home. There were a group of American school students on some sort of trip, a group of Japanese tourists mixed in with more locals and a few backpackers. The flight was only short about an hour and a half and me and Steph pretty much slept our way through it. We landed collected our bags and left the airport pretty quickly to find our taxi pickup holding a sign with my name on. He got our bags and put them in the taxi and we were away to our hotel in Miraflores.

About 40mins later we were pulling up outside the hotel which looked really nice. It was about 12.30 by this point and we were used to being able to check in early but no such luck this time. We were told we could leave our bags and to come back at 3pm for check in. Steph was a tad grumpy as she was hot and wanted to change so got some clothes out to change into shorts and then left the hotel to try and get our bearings. We had looked into paragliding online (me, heights - yeah I know!) and knew the place to go was about a 10min walk from our hotel, but first we wanted a drink and some food. We walked pretty much around in circles for a bit until we came across a really local looking place which had some people queuing at the door. We joined the queue and waited until there was a table free. I was a bit apprehensive as this place looked really local and with us speaking hardly any Spanish and with Steph being a vegetarian it could have gone so wrong! Luckily we were seated and then I started pouring over the menu using my google translate app! There was nothing on the menu that didn't have meat in it. The waiter came over and Steph managed to say she was vegetarian in Spanish and he could speak a bit of English so he just starting naming some food such as salad, eggs potatoes etc and Steph confirmed she could eat those and he said they would make something up. I ordered Lomo Saltado which is a national dish and a bit like a beef stew. About 5-10mins later the food arrived and the portions were absolutely huge! Neither of us could finish our food and we left quite a bit. The thing we've noticed is that the food portions seem to be large over here everywhere. It's crazy as most of the people don't seem overweight either! We got the bill and it ended up being £7.50 for both our meals and three drinks between us, no wonder it was popular with the locals, in fact we had been the only tourists in there and stuck out like a sore thumb!

After the food we checked back in with the hotel and managed to get our room before heading off down to the local park where we knew the paragliding was. On the way there I was trying to decide whether to do it or not. It was weird though as even though I was nervous I was able to focus on the reasons I wanted to do it and think rationally. We spoke to the man at the kiosk who said that there was no paragliding today as there wasn't enough wind. Steph was gutted as she really wanted to do it, I did feel a little relieved to be honest but I had still wanted to do it. We then walked back to the hotel to check out the roof top bar and pool. By now it had gone a little cloudy so we just had a drink and looked at the view before relaxing in our room. Steph then decided she wanted a bath but there was no plug so she phoned down to reception to ask them. They didn’t quite understand what she said and said they’d send someone up. In the end an hour and a half later after two new plugs and two visits from some non English speaking maintenance man she was able to run a bath. The fun didn’t stop there though as she turn coukfng get the plug out Nd had to go down to reception again to request help! We then tried to find somewhere to eat dinner and ended up at an Indian restaurant round the corner. The food was lovely and fresh and there was a few choices for Steph. After we'd eaten we headed back before going to bed. Tomorrow we have a trip booked to go out to see the Palomino Islands and swim in the sea with sea lions. Our pickup is at 10am so it's the first lie in we've had in a while!

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