Dissociative Fugue

Been a real tourist here in New York. Went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, went up the Empire State Building, went on a cruise round Manhatten Island.
To be quite honest, I don't know what all the fuss is about. Apart from the aggressive street selling and begging you could be in London. Less likely to be shot in New York than in London these days I know.
The Empire State is the worlds tallest money printing machine. You put thousands of humans in at the bottom, squeeze them really hard and loads of money comes out. I made the mistake of buying a bottle of water in the gift shop and it was $2.70 as opposed to $1 at street level. It's not like they carried up there like on the Inca Trail.
The river cruise was much better value for money, $30 for a three hour trip. Because the island is quite narrow, you really do get to see a lot by cruising round. The guide was quite informative and funny too.
Central Park is nice (the bits I saw of it) and it is quite amazing how quickly you leave the noise and traffic behind. I don't know what was chasing all the people I saw running there, mortality probably.
All in all I'm not sure I heart New York really, but at least I've seen for myself.

It's getting really hard to find the time to do this, especially as most hostels charge for the time used. So apologies for the lack of content. The big problem with these whistlestop tours, is that just as you start to work out where eveything is, it's time to leave. This is definately the case with Nashville, as I eventually got to the really good downtown area on the morning I left
However I had had a really good night out the night before. I went along to a local place that boasted a lot of famous past performers, and the night started really well when the doorman insisted on ID to prove I was over 21. Then I got chatted up by two members of the local lonely hearts club, they were good looking women too, if obviously a bit desparate. I manage to put them off with some caravan stories, and they moved on to I guy in a cowboy hat. To top it off there was some good music and beer. A slight dampener was that it turned out to be a benefit gig for the family of a local country music hero who had been killed in a car crash.
In New York now after a 23 hour coach journey, hoping to be more organised about getting around here. I'll post again as soon as possible, and try to get some pictures up.

Having passed quickly through Miami (more lice than vice) I'm relaxing in Charleston. The Greyhound bus trip was reasonably stressful, but in fact got me here on time and none of the security guards shot me (one wanted to, but contained himself). And I made the journey from the Greyhound depot (they put them in the middle of nowhere, obviously) to the hostel with only one bus journey and a reasonable walk.
The hostel here is nice, which is good because the one in Miami was crummy and I was hoping for better. Charleston is nice too, which again makes a pleasant change from the frankly underwhelming bits of Miami that I got to see. The neighbourhood that I'm staying in is a wierd mix of up and coming and guys outside the local store drinking from the traditional brown paper bag. Even the guys with the bags seem friendly enough, although you wanted want to engage in more than a hi, how you doing kind of conversation.
Downtown upped and came back when we owned it, and it's still mighty posh today. The amount of money just in the cars driving past is unbelievable.
Anyhoo, the sun is nearly over the yardarm so I'm going up to the verandah with a beer - it's actually the law here.

I've done it, I've walked the Inca trail and survived(just).
The toilets are hideous, the altitude crippling, and the scenery is stunning. It's quite difficult to get your head around the fact that you can only walk about five steps before having a rest, but believe me at 4200m for some of us it's a fact.
We were really lucky to have perfect weather all the time, and the Trek company turned out to be really good. I can imagine that bad weather or bad food and accomodation could make the trek a really miserable experience.
A key skill for walking the Inca Trail is precise bowel control, beacuse some of the toilets were just unusable, and any good ones needed to be taken full advantage of.
Was it worth it? Yes. Would I do it again? Only on the train.

Eventually I'm here in Peru (well I've been here a while but the altitude sickness, and catching up on the sleep I missed on the journey have occupied a lot of my time). It is a hell of a long way to Peru, even by jet aircraft. It took about 32 hours in all, half of it in cattle class, half of it hanging around in airports - neither is much fun.
Upon arrival at Cuzco the sun was shining, and the journey started to seem worth it. Then the altitude sickness kicked in and I started to doubt the wisdom of all this. In the nick of time I was introduced to cocoa tea (all perfectly legal), and I am starting to feel a bit better.
Tomorrow at about 5am I'm off on the Inca Trail, so if I survive that I blog again.
No pictures at the moment as the computer here doesn't have the necessary bits.