getting here, seals and sea sickness

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Well I caught the flight without a hitch came via Madrid to Lima, now for those who havent travelled with air Iberia there are pluses and minuses, the flight was packed and there were loads of kids, I also had some gross twat behind me who for some reason thought it would be a good idea to sneeze through the gap between my seats... not happy! The food was shite, because I´m a vegetarian they seemed to want to deprive me of all happiness, my main meal was rice and peas... not kidding just rice and just peas. No whilst the non vegetarian lady next to me was tucking in to her desert of treacle pudding next to me I was chowing down on 1 small piece of melon... nice. So a few hours later they bring around the sandwiches... i get the smallest dryest sandwich in the world with a slice of what tasted like tesco value cheese slices. The final meal was a chopped up tomato and a bit of chopped up cucumber on a bed of wilted salad... again i ate a tiny piece of pineapple whilst her next to me got chocolate brownie and a kit kat!!! The flight was good though, luckily I´m a world champion sleeper and apart from when i was eating I slept all the way there!

All the reading material on the flight was spanish as were the instructions of what to do in the event of a crash...

Now on to Iberias good points or point to give an accurate description of the situation, it would appear if you are a male that wants to work for iberia it is a pre requisite to be fit... and i mean FIT I dont even think they were gay.

I arrived in Lima and my taxi that was supposed to meet me wasnt there, so i got another one. In all the guidebooks it says how important it is to negotiate fare before hand... i did not and got ripped off, only by a tenner but thats like loads for the people over here so he must have thought all his birthdays had come at once and even though I specificaly asked if he knew where my hostel was and he said yes... he didnt! I had to get a bit arsey before he rang his boss and found out where it was... i got the whole- let me take you to a hotel i know it is good yes¿ err no. The taxi ride itself was terrifying, three lanes of traffic but we are going between then with main beam on and constant horn, cars flying from everywhere beep beep beep, emergency stops, swearing... i managed 14 hours on a plane without getting motion sickness ten mins in a taxi and im going green! Anyway, I somehow made it I walked into the hostel and the first thing i saw was a no smoking sign which i thought was hilarios as the place had the most intense smell of weed I´ve ever smelt in my life, during check in a door opened and out came a huge puff of smoke and a very red eyed man... ýou like¨ he asked.... errr no i dont!

I opted for the dorm which is the size of my bedroom at home but has 9 beds in it 3 lots of 3 bunkbeds, upon examining the bedding i chose the bottom one as the others had dodgy looking stains, the sheets smelled too so i was well pleased i had sleeping bag liner to sleep in so i didnt get comtaminated by the sheets, there were no other people there i had the room to myself untill about 12 am when i was rudely awoken by a dutch guy coming in... it took me a while but i forgave him for waking me up and he became my first travelling friend! Unfortunately it was his last night but he told me about where he´d been etc and we had a laugh.

This morning I was booked on the the sealion trip on the palomino islands, i got the taxi to the port and jumped on the boat, the man came round with a coctail of travel sickness pills red and yellow ones everyone on the boat just took them with no question asked which in hindsight was a little bit stupid but we survived. Anyway he then tells us the trip will be 4 hours all in all.... i´ll break you that 4 hours down... 2 hours feeling sick, 1.5 hours being sick and half hour swimming with sealions. I have never been sick so much in my life (well i have a few weeks ago when deana got me pissed and i spewed all over my mums house) but anyway within 20 mins of leaving port i had completely emptied the contents of my stomach and was spewing up yellow bile... as soon as my body had produced more it was coming back up again! After what seemed like a lifetime i heard them saying the island was in front of us... i looked up and the sickness subsided immediately there was an island on it and on it thousands and thousands of sealions (8000 live there) it was an amazing sight, the noise was the wierdest bit i cant describe it but it was mad. No sooner had the sickess subsided it came back with avengance when the stench of the shite of 8000 sealions hit me... absolutely undescribably gross! I can only liken it to the smell at rspca dog kennels but much much worse. And yes I was about to swim in it! For a moment I didnt think i was going to make it in to the water because everytime I moved I spewed but I made it and in we jumped I think about 5 of us went in the water... the first thing that hits you is the cold and it really is soooooo cold it takes your breath away but then it all made sense why id but myself through the worst 2 hours of my life and we swam up and started playing with the sealions they were really sweet and really inquisative swimming along side you then flipping over and splashing you... it really was amazing being so close to them and touching them. I was laying on my back in the water and one came right up between my legs... i thought he was being nice but then the guide yanked me away so perhaps he was gonna kill me i dont know. The current was really strong and pulled you towards the rocks but everytime we got to close we were told to move back so it was ok. Unfortunately it was time to go back to the boat and head back... this time we had to deal with cold as well as sea sickness... everyone on the boat has sea sickness on the was back so i wasnt alone with my head overboard. Got back feeling terrible... was it worth it... hell yeah! Would I do it again.... no. Was going to do Ballestas island boat tour tomorrow but I´ve decided not to it´s too soon the memory of being soooo ill is too fresh in my mind! And Nazca can keep their lines too as i´ve been told you get bad motion sickness flying over there!

A guy on the boat said to me if you survived that boat journey the inca trail will be a piece of piss!

Slight hitch on the way back when my pre paid taxi didnt turn up so the tour guide took me back in another taxi... which again was terrifying the car was about 30 years old and the floor in the back(where i was sat) had disintergrated and was open to the ground.... scary stuff! xx

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Comments

[Cathy]

Soooo Funny
Hey baby thats ace what you have done so far what a fantastic experience miss you loads. Be good but if you cant be carefull! lots of love xxxx