Murphy's Law

Happy New Year! I had a great time at home visiting everyone, but it was time to take the return flight back to South America and back up to Cusco.

No sooner had I landed in Lima, - 'Murphy's Law' began- 'If anything can go wrong, it will'. My bank card wouldn't work when I tried to use it. Dopey me received a new one when I was back in Ireland and forgot to activate the pin. This kept me in Lima an extra couple of nights. I was meant to be back in Cusco for NYE, and to start work the next day, but didn't make it. I did have a great time in Lima catching up with my two Peruvian friends. Rosario, who invited me over to her house for a lovely meal on NYE with her family and then we went out to the Miraflores area of the city and met up with another friend, Ronald, who I met in Cusco and his mate Yuri. So nice to have these contacts here in Peru and we had a great wee night.

The next day it was time to get a seat on the 22 hour bus back up to Cusco. Spent 24 Soles there and back only to find out that the offices were closed about 5 minutes before I arrived. So that meant another night in Lima, which was lovely and warm as it's summer here. That meant me being late - 3 days for work; but surprisingly, they were fine about it (obviously desperate for staff as I found out that 7 people walked out mid-December, so even if they wanted to tell me to get lost, they couldn't).  

Arrived in Cusco on 3rd January and about 10 minutes before it was time to enter the bus terminal, the room in a house that I was meant to rent, wasn't available until the 8th now. So then I was technically homeless for a while. Got in touch with my friends from my old Spanish school and they housed me for a few days, until I got myself sorted.  Met up with my colleagues and friends from work on the Friday and then settled back into work on the Monday. This time, I was teaching different classes from before. Mainly Basico, Alto-Basico and Advanced Levels.  The classes were just so sweet, Basico adults so vulnerable trying to learn English, but you could be a complete eejit with them and sing/dance around the room and they would copy.

By Day 2 my eye started to get the same feeling it had before. I just thought that it was probably the altitude and pollution again so I put some drops in it. By Day 3 I couldn't open it...it was the same story as before, so this time I jumped into the nearest taxi and went to the same hospital I had been to previously with my shingles/sunburn. Embarrassingly enough, it was the same doctor that had seen me before. So yep, got tested with a hand-torch if you don't mind - and he was fit to tell me that the shingles virus had reappeared again(?).  Left the hospital armed with the usual supply of antiviral drugs and other weird drugs to take.

Returned to work in the afternoon after taking the drugs. I was given four different types of drugs.  One was an antiviral, which I'm used to, the other two were drugs that would knock out a horse. Of course, I was as high as a kite trying to teach. One particular drug, which I later found out, was given  to people with neuralgia pain (which I was having) but also for people who take bad seizures/epileptic fits/serious ADHD/schizophrenia!!It decreases the number of red blood cells in your body (great, that's all I need at high altitude when as many red blood cells are needed) Side effects. I seemed to have them all. Confusion...yep, can't even remember calling my friends on the phone, dizziness, sleepiness (couldn't even manage to take my clothes off to get to bed), and bleeding from places I shouldn't be. It also lowers your dependence on alcohol. I only found this out after my birthday celebrations with friends here in Cusco and did wonder why after a few cuba libres, I couldn't have anymore!

I did have a great birthday weekend here in Cusco with my friends. And one of my alto basico classes sang me happy birthday in Spanish/English and Quechua.  I have decided on staying here in Peru for another 3 weeks, then I'm out of here. I hope to leave Cusco by the end of the week - it is rainy season here and it really rains and it is very cold also. One day whilst walking to work, the roads became rivers - brown rivers at that - it was crazy. The season is summer, but is totally different to Lima where there is nice heat etc. My family would prefer I take an early flight home and get my eyes checked out properly, but I'm going to stick it out here for a wee bit more and keep travelling like I always do! I'm getting itchy feet again, so I need to uproot myself and go off travelling again.This time I'm getting the better of Murphy's Law..fingers crossed.