Cusco

The bus to Cusco was the most exhausting of my trip so far. When I got to the bus terminal they let me know the bus would be leaving at least an hour later as people from Lima were just having dinner now. When I looked at them a little confused they actually used google translate to repeat the reason. But turned out I did understand right the first time. People from Lima were having dinner. But I guess the bus was late because of traffic in Lima and this resulted in the people from Lima (the bus came from Lima) just now having their stop for dinner.
I had arrived to the bus terminal in Ica an hour early anyway because I wanted to get dinner before getting on the bus. So now I had a lot of time for getting dinner. I was hoping to find a nice place where I could spend some time but unfortunately the bus terminal was in a really sketchy area. There were basically just a lot of fast food restaurants with all forms of fried chicken around. I settled for the one that looked the most welcoming and ordered fried chicken and fries. The waiter probably thought it a little weird that I took out my kindle and started reading while taking my time finishing my dinner. But I had to kill the time somehow. When I got back to the bus terminal I met 2 german guys that I had met before in Montañita and Mancora. Turned out they were on the same bus than me. At least I wasn't the only one taking this cheap bus.
When the bus finally arrived it didn't look to bad. It didn't have the comfortable "semi cama" seats with extensions for your legs which fold back to 140° but the seats were still ok and as I had a window seat I was sure I would get a good night of sleep.
Unfortunately that didn't happen. From Ica we went high up into the Andes pretty quick so maybe I can blame the altitude but I don't really know. I just wasn't tired at all. My beginning cold didn't really help with the feeling that I couldn't breathe properly. The bus didn't have air conditioning or heating so it was freezing cold. Additionally the guy next to me behaved super strange. He was this french backpacker who carried lots of stuff and smelled like he hadn't had a shower in a while. He didn't talk to me at all even if I directed a question at him. During the night he started talking to him self looking around really confused. I'm not sure if he was scared of something or even kind of sleepwalking as he didn't answer at all when I asked him if he was ok.
In the early morning we were stopped in a small village by protesters. It took us 3 hours to get through the village. We saw later that they even painted on our bus. We only had a quick stop for breakfast at a small restaurant which sold some traditional chicken soup which didn't smell appealing so I bought some cookies and decided these should do for breakfast. After we got back on the bus I finally found some sleep until the sun started burning through the windows around midday and the bus got crazy hot. I opened my window but this didn't help a lot. I realized I had lost my water bottle somewhere on my way to the bus terminal and hadn't had anything to drink since dinner the night before. So when the bus stopped again to drop of some people I tried to get of to buy some water and something else to eat. The assistant told me we weren't supposed to get of as we were already running late but luckily the 2 german guys also needed food so she agreed to let us of if we really hurried. We ran into the bus terminal and I grabbed a bottle of water and a bag of chips (healthy food today). When I came back outside the bus was already pulling out of the station with its door still open. I made sure the other two were coming as well and jumped on the bus.
We were supposed to get to Cusco around 2pm but obviously this wasn't happening. Around 4pm we had another unexpected stop in a little village where a truck had flipped over and was blocking one lane. We had to wait for about 20 minutes and a lady selling food outside her house made the sale of her lifetime. She had a huge pan with meat and potatoes outside her house and she sold everything to people from our bus. A few people got of the bus to get food but in the end she was just running back and forth between her pan and the bus handing styrofoam containers with food up to the windows while people dropped their money to the ground. The same thing happened when about an hour before we finally got to Cusco 2 girls entered the bus selling cake and yello. Usually these girls can be happy if they have a few customers. Today they were completely sold out when they left the bus. It was 7pm when we finally arrived to Cusco after over 21 hours. I shared the taxi to the hostel with another girl who was staying at my hostel as well and the two german guys who were staying close by. After a hot shower we went out to get some food. I was really craving something fresh after a day of cookies, chips and yello. After dinner we checked out the bar at the hostel but I went to bed soon after. Looking forward to a good night of sleep I opened the door to my room and couldn't believe what I was hearing: a guy snoring so horribly - he was worse that anything I had experienced in my 7 month of staying in dorm rooms. I don't like using earplugs but I got my headphones out and tried to block his sound out by listening to an audiobook. I can't even tell you if it was his snoring, my cold or still the fact that I seem to have trouble sleeping in high altitude but it was around 2am when I last checked the time before finally going to sleep.

So far I hadn't really made a decision how to continue my journey. My original plan was to go from Ica to Arequipa and do Cusco and Machu Picchu on my way back to Lima. But as I now had to go to Cusco because of the road destroyed by the earthquake I could also turn my whole plan around and do Machu Picchu first.
But when I woke up the next morning I felt really bad for the first time in 7 month. The cold had really kicked in, I was tired and exhausted from the lack of sleep and even just walking around town was super exhausting. For the first time I really didn't wanna do anything. Additionally Cusco was super busy as it's high season right now and the independence day weekend was coming up. They had a lot of parades (including one showing of their army which was pretty creepy) which was nice but I wasn't really up for it. So I decided to stay another night to get some sleep but then get back to my original plan and head to Arequipa which was supposed to have a warmer climate and probably wasn't as busy for the Dia de la Independencia.
I did like Cusco and I'm looking forward to getting back there in a few weeks but I was just not in the right condition. My second night was a lot better though. I went to bed around 9:30pm wearing a lot of clothes and was already feeling better the next morning. I even managed to join the free walking tour around town and went to the market to buy me some gloves as I realized I should get ready for the cold climate of Peru and Bolivia.
The nightbus to Arequipa wasn't a pleasure as I seemed to have lost my ability to sleep wherever I am but 11 hours was still a lot better than 21.Baca lagi