Arrived in Peru

After spending a couple of days with my family in Dallas, I have now arrived back in Peru. I met a lovely Peruvian lady on the plane. She lives in the States, but comes down to visit her mom once/year for a few months. She works 2 jobs, 7days/week so that she can travel like that. She was also going to spend the night at the airport with her husband, who was on a different flight, and we agreed o find a place at the airport where we could huddle together to stay safer. It turned out that there were so many other people with the same idea, that we had to split up because there was hardly any room on the floors. Of course I couldn’t relax enough to sleep with all my luggage next to me, but stayed awake reading and doing S udoku. A coffee shop at the airport has Wifi, so I was able to call home with updates before leaving in the morning. By 7am it was light enough outside to where I felt safe enough to take a cab to the bus station. The first 2 taxi drivers offered extremely expensive rides, but I eventually talked the next one down to where I only paid $4 more than I wanted to. I made it to the 8am bus and spent the next 3 hours dozing on the bus. After a short taxi ride to the hotel I crashed for several hours. I’m so glad I found this cheaper hotel before I left last year. It will allow me to search for an apartment without being super stressed about throwing away too much money every day.
After my lovely nap I went to visit my friends. One had a baby since I last saw her and I got to meet her plump baby girl for the first time. Some of the baby clothes I had brought were too small for her. Luckily I had a few different sizes with me.
I ran into one of my former neighbors close to the beach later when I went for a walk. He is about 13 years old, but spent several years in the US, and it was great to have a conversation without having to concentrate the whole time. I walked around a bit and wrote down some phone numbers of potential apartments or rentals before heading back to the hotel. I’m so happy to be back. Things are familiar and I hope I can settle in soon and make it feel like home.
I am super happy I brought my own pillow, as the hotel pillows feel like they are stuffed with rocks. My earplugs are also one of my favorite possessions right now, since there are lots of snoring and TV noises all around me at the hotel!