The star of David

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Hola!

11/3/10

Not much done today apart from walking around and taking in the sights of Cusco, although we do discover a cracking all day English breakfast in an Irish bar called Paddy´s (supposedly the highest Irish bar in the world).

12/3/10

Today is our first day of visiting the Incas ruins. We visit places called Tambomachay, Q´enqo and my personal favourite, Saqsaywaman - where there is a disappointing dearth of good-looking ladies. Dave´s attempts at Spanish are hilarious. The other day he referred to our waitress as the Islamic-sounding ´Sunita´ as opposed to ´Senyorita´. Today, a lot of us want to do the Saqsaywaman tour in a rush because it´s raining, so Dave asks our Spanish-speaking guide, ´Amigo, can we do the... umm... vamos tour of the ruins please.´ We all knew what he meant. I doubt our Sunita did though.

13/3/10

Day 2 of Inca Ruins - this time we get the bus to the heart of the sacred valley. The ruins today (in Ollantayambo and Pisaq) are far more impressive and Machu Picchu-like. I am a complete sucker for South American merchandise. Today I buy my second and third Incas v Spaniards chess set. It now takes a superhumanly effort to close my bag. And I´ll still probably buy another chess set at some point. Go out in the evening to ´Mama Africas´ for some late night drinks.

14/3/10

Today is sadly the last full day of ´nueve personas´. On Shrennie´s recommendation, we decide not to go to Paddy´s for the full English breakfast, but to a nearby restaurant he´s been to instead. Worst mistake of my life. The breakfast in this place was cold, the toast was just warm bread, the bacon tasted of a plastic ruler, the mushrooms required more chewing than chewing gum, the sausages were simply tiny hot dogs and the baked beans looked more like sheep´s eyeballs. Last time I listen to you Shrennie. I could have had breakfast in the highest Irish pub in the world.

15/3/10

Nueve personas goes down to siete personas as most of us fly to Lima whilst Rose and Lauren stay in Cusco to work in an orphanage. Our flight to Lima with ´Tacca´ airlines was suprisingly far from taccy - lots of leg room on the flight, only an hour long and a nice warm muffin midway through. And all of this for only 50 quid.

As we are only in Lima for a night, we have a bit of an explore. Despite being in a 3rd world country on the other side of the world, as all good tourists do we manage to have coffee in Starbucks and dinner in McDonalds. Good old multi-national companies making me feel at home. The McDonalds is incidentally the biggest McDonalds I´ve ever seen in my life. Make the mistake of going out in Lima in the evening. The city is clearly dead on a Monday and we see virtually nobody else. Dave and I end up in a plush, over-the-top Las Vegas-esque casino called ´Atlantic City´ where we get fed free food and drinks all night. I break even but Dave walks away with a cool profit of 150 Soles (just over 30 quid).

16/3/10

Dave has been conviced to come to Mancora with us for the next few days. But everybody else goes their own separate ways so we are now down to quatro personas. Get a 19 hour bus to Mancora where they keep showing English-speaking movies, dubbed in Spanish, and then with English subtitles. Stupid, especially considering that most people who use these types of buses are English-speaking.

17/3/10

Arrive bright and early in Mancora, a surfing town in the north of Peru. Check into the Hostel Loki, hire some body boards and head straight to the beach. The surf is incredible, the weather is beautiful and the beach is surprisingly empty. Perfection. All that we needed is a ball to throw around, but I´m nitpicking. Dave has a bad day with his lighters. The first one inexplicably blows-up causing mass confusion and panic, while the second one gets washed away when a wave catches us unawares whilst taking a kip on the beach.

It´s St Patrick´s day so we have some drinks in the evening. Sitting on a table, we find some facepaint so start drawing things on eachother. Dave draws a swastika on a Swedish girl who then tells him that she´s Jewish. It didn´t go down well. But it does inspire me to draw a Jewish star on Dave (star of David...). I am such a brilliant comedian. End up getting what is probably the best burger I´ve ever had at 4am with a couple of friendly Dutch guys.

18/3/10

Poor old Shrennie has sun-stroke so spends the day hiding away from his yellow nemesis. More body boarding for me though. We all play poker in the evening with 17 other people. I get down to the last 5 but then get beaten by ´the bank of Argentina´ (a devilishly handsome man from Buenos Aires) when his KQ trumps my pair of 2s when we go all in pre-flop (now there´s some poker jargon for you to get your heads around). Go to bed early and wake up at 6am to find a giant fish has been placed on my pillow. Thanks guys.

19/3/10

Getting the bus to Quito today, but not staying there for long as we´re then getting the bus to Otovalo straight away. Another 18 hour night bus looms - but if you´re occupied by movies (sadly always dubbed in Spanish with English subtitles - see above), reading or sleeping then the journey passes relatively quickly.

Almost back home now! Hasta luego!

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