Travel from the jungle to the Andes

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We flew out of Iquitos early this morning, switched planes in Lima, and flew on to Cusco. It is a very historic Incan city at an elevation of 11,000 feet. Both of us have had problems at high elevations before, so we immediately hired a cab to take us across the mountain and into the valley at Pisac. This was definitely the wildest car ride we've ever had. This guy was flying! There were tight turns, huge dropoffs without guard rails, and stray livestock in the middle of the road. To top it off, everyone drives in the middle of the road until they meet each other, then they jerk the car to the right side. It was truly amazing that we got to Pisac without an accident. This was way more dangerous than any number of poisonous snakes in the jungle. We thought "valley" meant it would be at low elevation, but we were wrong; we were still at about 10,000 feet. It is winter in South America, but we're not far from the equator, so we hoped for warm weather. It was actually pretty cool at night, and none of the houses or hotels have heat. Brrr. Pisac is a small town that's stuck in a different era. The people wear their native clothes and come down out of the mountains a couple of times a week to hold a big market. We stayed at a small hotel/bed and breakfast that's on the square which is the center of all the market action. The hotel had a very sweet tabby cat that we befriended. Sally was not enjoying the altitude, so she took a nap while Len scouted out the good deals at the market. This will be our first hot shower since we left home a week ago. Yea!

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