Back in Scotland

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Well folks that is the 2012 Peru trip officially over :-(

I am safely back in Scotland after my >36 hrs journey travelling back, note to self: in future I need to think more carefully about the return travel!

My bus trip from Arequipa to Cusco was uneventful....however my taxi driver in Cusco did try to charge me an extortionate amount of money for a 3 min journey....thankfully I had my wits about me that morning and very little currency left, so I told him what the fare was going to be (I still gave him more than he deserved after his cheek) and he just accepted it, never let your guard down!

At the Cusco airport I had the pleasure of having all my luggage inspected by 2 police officers (in their thirties), trying to ensure I was not smuggling out any COCA tea or leafs!!! Thankfully I had disposed of my coca leafs from the trek prior to leaving Cusco the first time. So I spent an hour with them, while they quizzed me on my age, marital status, children status etc....I need to come up with some sort of story for these situations since I am starting to get fed up with total strangers telling me to get married and start having children RIGHT NOW!!!! So maybe Shirley's "2 kids and a husband" story will do from now on....

I almost felt sorry for the officers having to go through my smelly socks, and unwashed clothes, for an hour....but then they thought they found the scoop of the day...I had bought these little packets of diluting powder juice while in Lima and they thought I had figured out a way to smuggle drugs in them....to their disappointment when they checked the contents of one of the packs it was only diluting juice, so they quickly repacked everything and sent me on my merry way....to Lima.

In Lima I had a long 8hr wait until then next flight...unfortunately Air France / KLM staff in Peru are not as punctual as the Dutch equivalents so it was 4.5hrs before I was able to check my luggage in and head to the food court (I was starving by that point) and the only choices were fast food- what a disappointment after the great food while in Peru.

Flight to Amsterdam was on time and went smoothly, we even arrived 45mins ahead of schedule, which was a great relief to me since I had already made up my mind that I was going to have Sushi for dinner and wanted to pick some up while in Schiphol airport....it is amazing how everything falls into place when you think positively!!!

Final flight of the trip and finally I got my (missing until now from this trip) body search/pat down, since it proves the alarms in Amsterdam are way more sensitive than those in Paris and Peru! Now that the status quo had resumed, I was just a couple of hours away from home :-)

The rest of the journey home went without a hitch (except the luggage retrieval in Edinburgh took ages!!!) so that is me back in bright Kirkcaldy once again! Glad to say the sun has finally made an appearance, as I was starting to think I left it in Peru!!!

Thanks for reading

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