Houston, Lima, Cusco, 27 Hours Later

Extracted from parts of my travel journal:
Lima International Airport
"The sight of airport workers and immigration agents with masks makes me a bit paranoid and permenantly attached to my personal bottle of Purell (hello, ugly American: Cate Blanchett in Babel). Having a 7 hours layover is awful, especially in Lima's international airport. The first floor (the check-in floor) has loitering taxi drivers who, at the sight of a North Face backpack, knows that you're a tourist and then pester you about getting a hostal for the night. Having been pestered twice and trying to pass out that I have a flight to Chile soon, I sat up on the second at the food court for 5 hours. Hello Tom Hanks in The Terminal, who totally made it out to be more fun than it really is."

27 hours later, I'm here in Cusco! Travel note: Continental Airlines is awesome. Of course, the food's not Zagat-rated and probably taste more along the lines of 2 dollar-microwave dinner, but they at least give you one. As well as a turkey sandwich at 9:30 PM, which is universally known as late-night snacktime. Cusco was freezing when I landed (fine, actually high 40s). I got picked up from the teeny-tiny airport by my program and placed in a taxi. After checking in, my tour guide just said bye and see you tomorrow, which left me in shock because I was the only arrived volunteer and had 24 hours to spend by myself. I ended up writing out a request for a map and directions for La Plaza de Armas (the city square) on my handy-dandy notebook because I tend to blank when I'm approaching someone to speak Spanish. Easy enough, four blocks away from the hotel. The weather surprisingly from my initial frozen finger tips when I arrived was warm, think mid-60s. I've read travel books saying that the temp really range throughout the day since Peru's so close to the equator. The city square is gorgeous! Every building is a shade of brown/tan here, but the streets are easy to navigate, and despite the high attitude level, after two hours on walking with two layers of jacket, I wasn't a bit struggling for air. That coca tea, a traditional Peruvian tea which I got right as I checked in, really works. Later that night, I did find that all my toothpaste, lotions, etcs. all immediately squirted out right as I opened it.

By the way, the hotel I'm staying in is gorgeous! Pictures will be up. But I actually sleep on the ground floor, looking out to the backyard/junkyard so I feel a bit like Harry Potter under the stairs here. Shower was a bit of a challenge. There's a tickle of water that comes out of the shower with two options: boiling hot or deathly cold and you can't mix the two. Once you turn on the cold water to your already hot water, it just turns cold. The nights are freezing here; the weather report actually says it hits 32 degrees F. I slept under a pile of blankets, leg warmers, and hiking socks, but I was cozy. Off to my second day!

P.S: typing on these Spanish keyboard is so frustrating. The keys don't actually match up.