Take Me by the Hand

Sunday 25 April
Cusco

Today I spent the morning researching Colombia. Andres, colleague of mine at Tribal DDB was from Colombia originally and he gave me some recommendations of where to go. I check the guidebooks and they are in agreement so I have a rough idea of what I’m doing.

I watch the weekend’s episodes of Doctor Who. There’s no F1 this weekend. For lunch there’s a BBQ in the main courtyard of the hostel, so I have some of that. I meet some Argentineans from my room who are checking out, but not before they eat at the BBQ too. I asked them how they rated Maradonna as a manager. “He was a great player,” is their response. That says all you need to know really.

I wanted to sort out my trip to Machu Picchu this afternoon. I had a rough idea of what was needed so I headed off into town to find the train station to buy a ticket. I knew from my research that the train line wasn’t fully restored, so I would have to take a bus to Piscopicchu and take the train from there. However the train station didn’t seem to be open. It was Sunday after all and the trains weren’t running from there anyway. But there was a travel agency nearby so I went in there and asked about getting to Machu Picchu. Well they kinda saw me coming and gave me the cost of a full package which included the bus, train, hotel at Machu Picchu, an English speaking guide and so on. I did a rough maths calculation in my head and it seemed to be a good deal so I took it.

In the evening I had dinner with some people I met at the hostel. After that, there was a film being shown back in the hostel – Shutter Island by Martin Scorsese. It was OK, one of your standard psychological thrillers. Then bed.