Wednesday, August 20

Location: Cuzco, Peru

Today's weather: 13░C.

This was to be my last full day in Cuzco. I was still feeling sick, but better than the day before. Hopefully I was improving. I got up and went out to breakfast at 8am, having toast, black coffee, and orange juice – the same as the day before.

My main task for today was to make sure everything was okay for my travel the next day, back to Manaus. I needed to reconfirm my air tickets to make sure that the flights were still on (Cathy's flight back to France had been cancelled), and to reconfirm my seats. I also planned to visit Barry Walker at Expeditiones Manu, to ask about getting some photos of birds for use on the website (since my own camera equipment was very unsuitable for wildlife photography). Barry Walker is the local birdwatching expert and the owner of Expeditiones Manu, so I was sure that he'd probably have some good photographs available.

Since my flights were on AeroPeru and Lloyd AeroBoliviano, so I had to visit both offices. I knew that the AeroPeru office was located on Avenida del Sol, not far from where I was staying. There was a huge queue when I got there (welcome to Peru – the land of long queues!), so I had to wait in line for half an hour. Fortunately, my flight was okay, and the assistant also gave me directions to find the Lloyd AeroBoliviano office so that I could reconfirm the rest of my flights. I then went to the Expeditiones Manu office, which was nearby, and talked to Barry Walker. I dropped off the book that I'd promised for Tino and asked about the photographs. Barry kindly agreed to mail me some photos of the birds that I was most interested in – the cock-of-the-rock and hoatzin, and some of the giant river otters. The photos could then be added to the Amazon Adventure website, along with other information, on my return to New Zealand. Finally, I ended up at the Lloyd AeroBoliviano office – and was completely surprised to be the only person there (I'd been expecting another long queue).

In the afternoon I went shopping for souvenirs. There were lots of nice things that I would've liked – there were lots of alpaca jerseys and decorative wall hangings, jewellery and replica Inca-style ornaments, silverware, t-shirts, and many other things. But travelling with only a backpack to carry everything in can be a real problem. I just bought a couple of small things, but nothing much.

I returned to the hotel once more. I continued there with some writing which I later uploaded to the Amazon Adventure site. I also started the hard job of cramming all my things back into my backpack. I'm not sure how, but all my things seem to grow each time I repack, making the pack seem heavier each time!

In the evening, I went out for dinner with Rick and Cathy. We went to La Bella Italia and ordered Lasagne. It was delicious, but I was unable to finish mine even though the portions seemed very small. As always, I could rely on Rick (the "Australian eating machine") to finish off the unwanted food. We drank a bottle of Chilean wine, reliving parts of our adventure through Manu and talking of our planned future travels. Rick was planning to travel by bus to a city called Arequipa, while Cathy was returning to France for her studies. Then we ordered dessert – mine was kiwifruit and chocolate ice cream since, feeling a little homesick, I'd taken to buying any thing with the word "kiwi".