An End To Plans

from the moment we spent our last night in aquas calientes, we no longer had any plans set in stone as far as hostel reservations, bus tickets, or anything else. we just knew that by march 1 we needed to return to buenos aires to move into the new apartment.

unfortunately, Elizabeth and i were unable to find a room in the hostel where we had spent our first few days in town. this brought us back into town around 9pm with no place arranged to stay for the night, but at that point we just decided we wanted it to be inexpensive. we were only going to be there for one night and were leaving early in the morning for puno (hopefully...we didn't have a ticket for that either). this led us to a hostel that was not listed in our book nor on the website hostelworld. however, the cost for a room was dirt cheap and they had availability. the worker brought us to the room we were staying in. overcome with hunger, we decided it was fine, paid, and went looking for food, which we found at a place that would give us an 1/8 of a chicken and fries for something ridiculous like 2 peruvian soles. it was delicious and so sleep was the next thing on our minds after a long day that started with a 1.5 hour hike.

upon inspecting the room on our return, we realized it smelled heavily of marijuana (we think the staff had been smoking with some of the residents while watching simpsons re-runs), and the beds were dicey at best. Elizabeth had brought her sleeping bag and decided to sleep on top of the blankets in all her clothes in her mummy bag. I, not having a sleeping bag, decided to sleep in all my clothes, tucking my shirt into my waist and pulling up my socks as far as i could. i used my bag instead of the pillows and kept the hood up on my jacket. after a night of restless sleep, not wanting to catch any communicable disease from the bed, 6am could not come early enough to head for the bus station. i took a quick assessment of my body to make sure that none of my open skin had touched any of the sheets but i did end up with a few bites on my legs. yup, i'm pretty sure i was bitten by bed bugs. still, Elizabeth woke up unscathed and we both agreed it was better than spending a night out on the streets - which got cold enough to be uncomfortable at that elevation - and headed for the station to try to purchase our tickets to puno and lake titicaca. oh man, were we exctied.