We left Puno on March 17–that’s right, St. Patricks Day! Being neither Irish, nor a big fan of people telling me what to do(ie wear green), it took me a long time to come to appreciate the holiday. I still remember getting green glitter in my eye at preschool from when “leprechauns” visited us during nap-time…so seriously, we’re talking about it taking me 18 years to appreciate the holiday–once I learned how to appreciate whiskey.
The original plan was to have some drinks in the truck during the afternoon, similar to our Valentine’s Day celebration. But who was I to refuse when Ryan, my fellow American, offered me a beer at 8 AM. You can’t let someone drink alone, can you? That’s just not cool. So we spent much of the day slowly drinking until arriving in Cusco, when we went out to an Irish bar with Richard to celebrate. Other folks from our group went out for the evening, but I was safely tucked away in bed by midnight(Cinderella style).
Next day, people were looking rough at breakfast. By the time we had a mid-day orientation for what to expect on Inca trail the following day, a couple of folks(Shi-pali) opted out of the whole excursion. After this prep session, a few of us went to a local bagel restaurant for brunch. Can we talk for a minute about what a bagel is? At a bare minimum it’s a circle of bread…meaning some doughy product with a hole in the middle. Now I know I was setting myself up for failure picturing some delicious New York style bagels with plenty of cream cheese(or for my Philly friends–a bagel factory bagel)…but I wasn’t expected a glorified bun, with liquid cheese. WHAT? How can a place that specializes in bagels not even have some dough product with a hole in it? It just doesn’t make sense.
After my extreme disappointment, I spent most of the day running some errands(buying snacks, new pencil case, etc), and getting my mind mentally prepped for Inca Trail, before once again hitting up a Chinese restaurant for some last minute carb loading. 🙂
First impressions of Cusco was that I was really going to like it there.
Belated Gap Year 