Dec 20: going solo

When I awoke this morning, all I could feel was the pain in my thighs as they burned in the aftermath of yesterday's climb up the mountain. I quickly decided the last thing I wanted to do was sit on a bus for 20 hours to let them get more stiff.

I also decided to bypass the Nazca lines, knowing the bus trip to Lima would be the last and I wanted to get it over with as soon as possible.

Convincing Tara to stay another day was as easy as asking. Since our beds at the hostel had already been reserved for tonight, we had to find a different hostel, which wasn't a problem. However, it will be the last night we spend together for a while as we decided to split ways earlier this afternoon.

According to her facebook status, she'll be in Lima tomorrow but I'm not planning on getting there until Thursday night, just in time to catch the 3 a.m. flight back to Chile.

I visited several travel agencies this afternoon, a task harder than it sounds. A few of the agencies only do local trips. A few of them said they spoke English, but only seemed to have a few phases memorized. But I was able to find this place that speaks English fluently that understood what I wanted to go from here to Lima but make a few steps on the way.

When I picked up my bracelet today, I asked the girl where I should go and her and her boyfriend rattled off a list of places that the tourist agent recommended. I spent some time online and saw what the prices were around and what it would cost me to do the trip on my own, but not having to worry about anything once I leave here will be nice.

The first guy at the first place seemed really confident and knew the prices of everything off the top of his head like he had put the package together hundreds of times. The lady at the second place didn't seem like she put the package I was asking for together before, but she called for the prices instead of just using numbers and was about $60 cheaper than the first.

I will decide tomorrow which agency to use. Obviously, I want to spend as little as possible, but wonder if the second place overlooked something since they didn't seem to be as familiar as the first guy.

When I left the Internet café, I decided to go see if Tara was at the hostel and wanted to do dinner. But first, I thought I'd go see if the alpaca schiskabob ladies were out yet. On my way there, I bought a hotdog wrapped up in a waffle.

I also saw this guy selling a drink that is popular here and asked how much it cost. I'm pretty sure he said .70, but I thought he said $17 so I left. One of my schiskabobs weren't as well done as the rest have been. As I ate my pink alpaca meet bought from a street vender in Peru, all I could do was hope this story had a happy ending for my stomach.

On the way back, I passed the waffle/hotdog lady and thought, "Only I would get a snack on my way to get a snack." The very next shop was selling ice cream sandwiches. Only I would get a snack on the way to and from getting a snack.

Tara wasn't at the hostel, though I didn't think she would be. But on the way there, I ran into a guy handing out flyers to jazz music and thought it would be cool to check out, since jazz is the same in any language.

Across the street from the club, a guy was selling hamburgers from a truck. I ordered a double. The patties were super thin, but it came with fries on the burger. If you give an Idaho boy potatoes, he won't complain about much.

They locals have a saying, "If it didn't come from Peru, it's not a potato." I'd like to disagree.

I stopped to get another hamburger on my way out. The guy was out of hamburger patties, so I got a cheese sandwich, which for some reason, cost more than a hamburger. I only ate about half of it before I got back to the hostel and I didn't want to finish it, so I thought I'd give it to the stray dog that was coming down the street from the opposite direction.

That dog was carrying a plastic bag with some sort of food in it. I tried to talk him into dropping his bag since my sandwich was bigger than whatever he was carrying, but apparently, the dog must only know Spanish, so some other stray dog got to eat the other half of my sandwich.