Overnight Bus Nazca to Arequipa

I´m going through a low phase of my travels, and can´t really say that I´ve enjoyed the last couple of days, past Lima. I think it´s a combination of factors including tiredness, relatively boring and ugly towns, lack of space, poor accommodation, missing the luxury of a friendship base etc. I feel so negative that I´m considering bypassing a two day trip to the Colca Canyon with the group and staying those extra two nights in Arequipa... but yet to decide. I don´t really want to miss out on anything, but at the same time, I´m craving my space and time to relax and do nothing (the whole purpose behind travelling and taking a year off work). My stress levels are increasing... totally contradictory to why I´m doing this. I´ve been reading another traveller´s log, and the person reported switching off completely at the 9 month point of their trip RTW. They couldn´t even get out of bed... at least it hasn´t got to that point yet!

Another pic of group relaxing

The bus journey last night was absolutely miserable... even though I got upgraded to one of the better seats again. But... I sat next to a very obese old man who snored like an elephant... I was kicking myself for forgetting my ear plugs. It´s times like this when I question why I´m doing this... I put up with it for 5 hours, but at 3.30am, I had had enough so I got up... basically stepped on him as I crawled over (I was on the window seat) and spent about half an hour in the stairway, contemplating my next move. I went upstairs to check out the economy section but there were no seats... and walking around the bus was a nightmare given that we were encircling mountains. I had succombed to spending the whole night with this person, until I saw two spare seats at the front of the business class area... I quickly grabbed one of those and slept relatively well for the remaining 4 hours. Having one of these men snore about 30cm from your ear rates up there as being one of the most annoying times of my trip. Yuck.

Arequipa´s church at night

On arrival at the hotel (which seems ok), another annoyance... COLD SHOWERS. This is all I needed after the trip from hell... luckily, reception was very obliging and fixed the problem immediately.

So here I am... catching up on this blog and not in good spirits. At least I have today to do my own thing and check out some of the sights of Arequipa AND SLEEP.

Travelling CAN be difficult at times!

Arequipa´s Main Square

Group Relaxing at Nazca Hotel

Main Fountain in Square