Thursday, September 24, 2009

New Day, New Age, New Continent, New Friends

Hola Amigos,

Well, I've arrived in South America for the first time, and am currently writing from Lima, Peru.

It was a rather harrowing journey too, but nothing i cant handle.

Briefly:

Sept 18th - fly to Sydney, spend the weekend there.
Sept 21st 4am - wake up and head to airport for a 6.15am flight to Auckland. I dont sleep.

3hr flight, Arrive Auckland 11am-ish local time. 5ish hr layover at Auckland airport. No sleep.

Sept 21st 4.40pm local time - depart Auckland, 11hr flight, heating on full blast, too hot to sleep, watch 3movies straight, no sleep.

Sept 21st 11.30am local time....arrive SAntiago, Chile...i have travelled backwards in time!!. i arrived here 5 hrs earlier than i left Auckland!...how cool is that!


RANDOM AWESOME MOMENT #1


Make my way by Public Transport to the city. Meet up with random Irish backpacker, James, whose birthday is the day before mine (ie: today). still no sleep. i dont want to sleep in the middle of the day and keep the body clock in ruins.

we walk around the city for a few hours, beautiful, but not so good in the rain.

3pm - Return to hostel...plans are to hit the town tonight for James and my birthday with some other backpackers...decide to finally get some sleep - a 3hr power nap should do it....

it has been about 28hrs since i last slept, i have time travelled backwards and covered some 11000 Km's.

6pm - wake up, contemplate, but never actually get to dinner. all i have eaten since Sydney is airline food and a Burger King at Auckland airport.

10pm - FREE BEER!!! - the hostel puts out a slab every night at 10 for the guests. AWESOME!!!

Midnight of 22nd Sept, my birthday - time to hit the town: a coupla bars and a nightclub.

5am - return to the hostel, hammered drunk, no time for sleep. need to get to the airport for a 7.30am flight to Lima. Taxi is ordered.

7.30am - on board the plane, pass out, dont remember take-off, wake up mid flight for brekky, back to sleep. In "real time" i have had the sum total of 3hrs sleep out of 36hrs.

10.30am - arrive Lima, thankfully i had pre-arranged an airport pick-up from my hostel....there was no way I was gonna be able to deal with Peruvian public transport or taxis, suffering from mass sleep deprivation and a raging hangover.

11am - arrive at my hostel, crash out, remainder of daylight hours a write-off.


RANDOM AWESOME MOMENT #2


6PM - wake up, get chatting to Aussie girl in bunk next to mine...Amelia lives in a neighbouring suburb to me, Northcote, in the same street that once lived in back at Uni, Clarke Street...she also has the exact same backpack as me and also has a penchant for sewing flag patches on to it.

We go out to dinner with a friend of hers....my first real meal since Sydney 48hrs ago.

Back at the hostel...crash out, soooo super tired now...i think jet-lag still has a hold on me

Sept 23rd *today*


Light brekky at the hostel...have to check out and move across town to another hotel where my Macchu Picchu Inca Trail group is meeting

Midday: arrive at new hotel...decide to have a quick kip before having a wander around Miraflores, the suburb i am in......6hrs later i wake up from my comatose state, light-headed and woozy...

....maybe i should slow down???...nah, its the evening, gotta check out this place before i leave tomorrow morn for one last flight to Cuzco..wake up call will be at 6.30am.

phew!

Later,

Tony

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