How amazing it is to have such a talented daughter. Her suggestions were amazing – the Peru hop bus jumping off and on all round Peru when ever I wanted, staying for as long as I like in each area, then finishing up in Cusco volunteering at a dog rescue centre for a week – perfecto!

I never left my hotel room the whole morning (well apart from visiting the breakfast room for a healthy feast). I reshuffled the furniture and brought the table and chair over to the window to enable me to have a view while I was busy on the iPad.

By 2pm I had put together a schedule that would would fill in the 3 weeks that was empty due to leaving the jungle early. I wanted someone to read it over my itinerary to agree that it was feasible. How perfect was this, the office of the Peru Hop was in Miraflores just 10 mins walk from where I was sitting. 2 corners and a straight road – can’t go wrong there – surely 😉

Had a quick junk food snack – peanuts, crisps washed down with a sugary juice. Any weight loss will soon be regained at this rate!

So, satnav on, screenshot of route and back back filled with my iPad uploaded with my plans, I headed to the office of the bus company and surprise surprise (well it did me) I reached it within the allocated time and relatively easy – complete navigation pro now 🤣

A quick meeting to discuss my plans, all confirm and bus booked. I still had hotels to book at each stop but for now, I was heading into this new found bustling area of the city. The Central Park was near by and I thought I’d go sit in the sun for a while and enjoy being out in the fresh air. It was full of stray cats that had taken up residence and tolerated by the public – so chilled and wonderful company.

I couldn’t linger too long, I still had a lot of loose ends to tie up and hotels/hostels to book. I was supposed to book out of the hotel in the morning but I decided to enjoy another night of luxury to give me more time finalise my ideas.

Heading back the way I came, I stopped off at a cafe for a cafe latte – I don’t really like coffee and no idea why I took this notion but it was delicious. I needed to source a few things – a double USB charger and an extra cable for my apple devices which I did then returned to my room to put my thinking cap on.

The hotel agreed to let me stay another night which was great. It meant that I could relax tonight and concentrate on my tasks without having to think about packing till the next day.

I heated the chicken with mushroom sauce ready meal in the micro, added some rice, opened the chilled bottle of Erdinger and began searching on the next for accommodation.

Everything was going tickety-boo until all of a sudden the room began to shake. I had no idea what had just happened but I knew it wasn’t normal – more than just a heavy lorry passing. I sat for a moment trying to make sense of what had just happened but making no sense and still bewildered I phoned down to reception and not wanting to sound weird, I put some thought into how I was going to phrase the question but when he answered the phone, it just blurted out my mouth without thinking “my room just shook” I said feeling a bit embarrassed at this random statement. “Yes, we just had an earth tremor Madam” whit! how can he be so casual. “Should I be worried?” “No don’t worry, madam, it happens all the time” 😱

All of a sudden I felt very vulnerable. I sat on the couch, heart pounding half expecting a second episode. Dear God, I’ll never sleep a bloody wink tonight. I left my hotel room and went out into the corridor to plan my escape route (after having a wee or maybe a large swally)

I went back into the room and started searching the internet to find out just how often these earth tremors happened and what I found was quite alarming. He was right, it was a regular occurrence.

And look at that, it was all around the area I was travelling to.

That was it, iPad closed, I couldn’t think anymore. I went to bed thinking of the worst scenarios. I’ll continue in the morning when my head was more clear.

Nite 😬😳