Karaoke, Spanish Bingo and Diarrhea-what a combo!

Trip Start Jan 08, 2007

Trip End Mar 13, 2007

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Flag of Peru Arequipa to Cuzco, Peru
Wednesday, January 17, 2007

So today we spent the day just wondering around Arequipa on our own. We had some time to spend before we had to catch our 9 hour night bus to Cuzco. This city is always bustling, tons of people walking around on the streets, local buses speeding around with a guy half hanging out of the door yelling out destinations and prices, trying to get passengers. It's quite a crazy sight to see when the passengers get on and off the bus, the bus barely slows down and passengers literally jump on and off as the bus slightly slows down. We didn't give it a try as it was easier to walk around to the areas we needed to go to. In all the cities we've been to so far there is always a bit of a touristy area, where tourists can walk around, see sights, shop and feel relatively safe. This was abit of a surprise to us as we did not expect this. South America has become pretty touristy and there are always a handful of tourists around, even in low season. We have even walked around quite abit at night

01 Santa in South America

. The main touristy, busy area felt very safe at night, we just had a bit of a short walk to our hotel through a darker, sketchier area, but it was fine.

We managed to get some laundry done during our day, bought some plane tickets from La Paz, Bolivia to the Ecuadorian border and caught our night bus to Cuzco.

Well.................our night bus to Cuzco ended up being a little shorter than usual. We managed to make it to Cuzco in 8 hours instead of 9 hours, thank god!!!!!!!!!!!! The combination of karaoke, Spanish Bingo and diarrhea the entire night were not very enjoyable moments. When we got on the bus at 8 pm, the music was blaring so loud we could barely think. This was a night bus, so some nice soothing, getting ready for bedtime music would have been the ingenious thing to put on. But no.......and to top it off they started playing these cheezy Spanish karaoke songs, with the cheezy videos and everything. You know, the kind of videos that feature tropical aerobics with the occasional close up on a girl's breasts as she bounces up and down and then those occasioanl close ups become frequent close ups and more frequent. Yeah it was great, just what I needed to settle into some sweet dreams for the night. Well.....it didn�t end there. Next on the agenda was Spanish bingo!!!

02 The cathedral in Arequipa

! We were handed Bingo cards and the numbers began to be read over the microphone. Well we were l�ost within a few seconds. I mean I can usually understand Spanish numbers but not that fast!!!! We gave up and allowed the other lucky players to have a better chance to win!!!!! As the lights went off and we settled in for a movie, my guts settled into a nice gurgle and rumble motion. I spent the next 7 hours in and out of the toilet!!!!!!!! The people on the bus must have thought I loved the smell of that bathroom so much, that I decided to sleep in there. Anyway, it was a relief to have the bus ride be a little shorter. But to top things off our driver was not at the station to pick us up as we had arrived early, so we decided to get our own cab. It was about 4:30 am when we got the cab and he took us to our hotel. We got our room and I was relieved to have my own toilet. We settled in to sleep for the rest of the morning as we were scheduled for a city tour in the afternoon.

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