Cuzco

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We hopped on a short 7hr bus ride from Puno, the highlight of which was when a giant rock shot straight into the upper level of the bus through the front window and nearly killed the person in the front seat. We´re still not exactly sure how it happened.

Oh, also, we saw how chickens are moved around in Peru - they´re stuffed into a sack, ten at a time, pretty much one on top of the other, still moving and squawking. Pretty tough to watch for too long.

Cuzco is best known as the nearest city to Macchu Pichu, but it´s worth spending some time exploring the city itself for at least a day. Cuzco dates back to early Spanish colonial times, and is beautiful with its narrow streets and cobblestone roads. It´s hard doing to much when the air is so thin, but we managed a two hour hike up through the streets, and you can see some of the wonderful views we had.

Tip of the day: If cute little girls with llamas come up to you and say ¨take my photo,¨ and you do it, the next word out of their mouth is ¨pagame!¨(pay me). No free photos of the local ninos. But Erica had a great experience, where after going through the above ritual and saying no, the little girl befriended Erica. She liked her even more after Erica gave her some popcorn. In return, the little girl pulled a thorn (aka dirt) that was stuck to the llama and gave it to Erica who very much appreciated the reciprocal gesture.

The rest of the day was relatively relaxing. We visited a few churches, good if you´re into the whole Jesus thing. We sat for a long time in the plaza de armas, the central square that´s in the photo. If you don´t learn any other spanish, it´s important in Cuzco to know how to say ¨no gracias¨as you´ll be saying it to the plethora of vendors selling everything imaginable who will come up and harrang you. In fact, we´re thinking of getting t-shirts that say no gracias on them to save our voices.

We went to a coffee shop in the main square, sat and played chess and cards for a while.

BTW, we stayed at the hostal koyllur, which was cheap ($12 per person) and very charming, a very good deal.

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