Now in Cuzco. Before I go into the details of the 20 hour bus ride, I would like to re-cap on some things I hadn’t mentioned earlier. A couple days before I left Lima, Grant stopped by The Point with his bike finally fixed up. I went for a short ride on it with him to a restaurant for lunch. It was my first time riding on the back of a bike and I was a bit nervous but we made it there safely. I had also befriended a couple really cool british guys. One was Mark who shared a good passion of music like me and we got along quite well. The other brit was was Tony. I liked him a lot as he reminds me of myself with the “I don’t give a fuck” type of attitude. He was also quite fond of Hunter S. Thompson which was great. He mentioned to me “Kingdom of Fear” one of his works that I will need to check out when I get home. I also met two british girls Isabelle and Annie. They were quite fun as well. Now onto the bus trip. It started out quite comfortable until the guy in front of me decided to get real cozy and lay his chair back, pinning my legs. That made for a quite uncomfortable ride. I felt as if my knees were in a vice grip. I dozed in and out of sleep getting maybe an hour at at time when I napped. I was just too uncomfortable. I got a kick of the narrow, winding mountain roads. The guardrails consisted of neon orange pylons with horizontal white stripes. There was no rope or chain connecting them. I was looking at certain doom in the canyon if the bus driver fucked up. I liked the thrill of it and the scenery was nice. It is nice seeing the sun as it never came out in Lima. Just everyday there was an overcast haze but it never really rained it would just spit a bit and that was all. I don’t think that I will miss Lima too much to be honest. I’m really worried about money now as I am down to $120 left in my account. Things are looking bleak with 3 long weeks remaining. I hope I can find a way to afford Macch Picchu but I’ll have to see what happens.
I remember one of the conversations that Mark and I had and he was talking about Richard Ashcroft. He is the lead singer of the band “The Verve” as well as a solo artist. It was Mark’s favorite musician and he told me the story of when he had seen him in concert. He was moved by the performance as at one point Richard had taken his shoes off and kneeled down on the stage with his arms outstretched a shoe in each hand. I can’t remember what song he had been singing but I can still recall Mark describing it. On another note, I still to this day haven’t read “Kingdom of Fear” and I’m not sure why. I think I need to change that in the near future. While I may have been fearful of purchasing coke, I wasn’t fearful of partaking. Tony was generous and shared some he had gotten. Let me tell you, that shit’s primo down there. We didn’t do a whole lot but with the quality of it down there you didn’t need it to talk the night away. Combine that with some alcohol and you’re looking at a socially primed machine. Tony and I had talked most the night away with Annie and Isabelle. All that talk though and I still couldn’t hook up. My issues are that I have never been good at making the first move. I also at that time had the high moral compass and sort of felt like you had to have some sort of relationship before hooking up. It took me a long time to understand that sometimes it’s ok to fuck and flee. I won’t lie I was hoping to go down there and have wild tales of sex but unfortunately none came to be. I know I took away from the suspense of my sex life down there by stating no hook ups. There were much bigger challenges that laid ahead for me though.
Basket of Thoughts 