It all works out, and it was a Sunday I’ll never forget.
(Note: To fully appreciate this post, listen to me spin the yarn about my first few highly stressful hours here in Perú. This was done in audio format on my podcast.)
Today should have been a Sunday fun day. The original plan involved sleeping in (which for me means getting out of bed at 8:00 a.m.), going for a hike, taking a nap after the hike, then watching my Broncos defeat the ignominious Patriots.
It didn’t work out that way, but it worked out OK.
Yesterday I realized that I had lost my Fidelity debit card, the one that gives me a full rebate on all ATM fees and cancellation of all foreign transaction charges. I tried my old fallback debit card and discovered that the magnetic strip is shot. Yipes. No access to cash. No bueno.
OK, fine, whatever. Suck it up. Take a deep breath. You’re not gonna starve; you just can’t buy from street vendors. Not a catastrophe.
That’s what I told myself yesterday.
Oh, uh… rewind a bit. Two days ago I set my travel itinerary which involves spending another week here in Cuzco. Now that the altitude doesn’t faze me, It seems like a place that’s worth another week of my life. It’s like no other place I’ve been. Might as well enjoy it. I am, after all, a person who enjoys going places but hates travel. After all the trouble of traveling to this place and the way it has not let me down in terms of “this is why I travel,” it’s worth another week.
So I got up at 7 this morning and booked another week at the hotel where I’ve been.
Sometime after breakfast and my morning walk, everything changed.
Early in the afternoon, I checked my e-mail. Reservation cancelled? Payment not received? WTAF?
OK, dude, relax. Everything will work out. Deep breath. Let’s get to the bottom of this.
That’s what I told myself. First I checked the payment. It had been processed.
Next I went on the app where I had made the reservation, the one that had taken my money, and explained my situation. “Uh, I don’t want to sleep on the streets of Cuzco tonight. WTF, guys?”
While chatting to the app rep, I talked to the manager of the hotel where I have been staying for the past few days and explained the situation. He assured me that I could stay here for the night.
The app’s business office tried to call the hotel but got no answer. I jotted down the number that they were trying to reach.
Went down to the desk and talked to the manager again. “Is this the number?”
“Oh, that’s the number of the office. It’s Sunday, and they’re out until tomorrow.”
That left me in limbo. I had a verbal agreement but nothing official. The app people were like, “Let us find you something else.” They made a few more calls. Same result. It’s Sunday. None of the office people for any of the hotels are working here in Cuzco.
Then it happened, the miracle: I got an email confirming my reservation here at this very hotel. Someone somewhere had done me a solid. It wasn’t the front desk guy, either. He seemed surprised.
After a few hours of stress, wondering where my payment had gone, whether or not I could securely lay my head in this comfy bed another night, having no cash whatsoever… todo bien now. Let’s relax.
Off to the pub we go for some football
The best chance I had of seeing an NFL game was Paddy’s Irish Pub which I had been meaning to try anyway. By the time I arrived, it was almost halftime, but it didn’t matter. The place was full of Euros and Latinos watching a futból match between Rome and Milan or some euro crap. Paddy’s only had one screen so I had to wait for that match to end.
That match ended in a draw (soccer is so f-ing boring — who wants to watch for 90 minutes and have it end in a 1-1 draw? I seriously don’t get it.). It’s a fun game to play, but watching it? Yeah, not seeing it…
Gimme football, man, Norte Americano-style.
They tuned the TV to the Broncos game after the euros achieved their boring draw. I watched most of the second half. I was the only one in the bar who watched. It was surreal; here’s this huge game — winner goes to the gdmf Super Bowl — and nobody cares in 95% of the world.
The Broncos lost, but at least I have a room until the next leg of this adventure which I will tell you about soon. Feel free to subscribe to this blog’s feed so you don’t miss a single, exciting post.
Looking forward to tomorrow; that’s what it’s all about. If you can look forward to Monday, you’re doing better than most. After a Sunday like this, a nice, normal working Monday sounds pretty nice.
