Wednesday, June 20th – Day 10 – Huacachina to Cusco-ish

Woke up surprisingly early about 7:30 and got our things in order, ready to head out to Cusco today. We found that the buses only run at night, so we were stuck for a bit longer. Horrible, right? Stuck in paradise. It was too late to do a day trip at this point, otherwise we would have considered the Nasca line tour. So we hung out at the pool all day, taking in some sun. I left for awhile to walk around the lake and check out the town. I found Lorina down by the lake and we hung out for a bit, resting in the shade of a beautiful tree, then she was kind enough to translate the plaques that were around the area, that told the story of Huacachina. She is amazing, I'm very glad I got to meet her. I went back and continued to lay around at the pool. Finally, some of the others from the night before started coming out, Lauren, who had gotten up at 5 to go to Isla Ballestas, looked like death earlier, but returned from a 3 hour nap totally refreshed. Joey, the California guy who took a job at the hotel, pretty much just to hit on tourists night after night and party. He had hooked up with Anne the night before, a cute Asian?Australian from Melbourne.

We talked and laid around lazily and exchanged info until we had to go. Hopefully this is not the last time I'll see them. We plan on Lorina in Cusco in a couple days and maybe a bunch of us in La Paz eventually.......we'll see. Mark and I caught a taxi into Ica and went to the bus station. We met some new people there. Melanie and Yurum from the Netherlands and Carmel and Claire from England all going to Cusco as well. We English speaking folk seem to unite everywhere, and both Mark and I are outgoing enough to talk to anyone. We collectively decided to help each other out as Yurum and I spoke the best Spanish, and none of us were very familiar with the boarding practices here. We figured it out, and got on the bus to leave. It was a little bit less nice than the previous bus, Cruz del Sur, but still really nice. The sun went down and we settled in. War Horse was the movie and I got a few hours of sleep.