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Published: March 2nd 2007
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Llama
Hello. 23 February, Friday... What a lovely morning. And this hostel has a nice garden to sit out in with hammocks and all sorts (and chairs I mean by that). But the weather turned bad at around twelve so we decided to do something other than laze about in the garden. On to the town centre where we could investigate all manner of things like trips to the Colca Canyon and see the big cathedral on the main square and go to a monastery or so it was called but was only for nuns, a nunnery if you will. The Santa Catalina Monastery is made of some white volcanic rock called sillar, which I didn't find too interesting but I just read about it when I checked the name, and resembles a small town with streets and different buildings, fountains and alike. The whole place was run like a prison for years and nuns got themselves closer to God through pain and starvation but now there's a bit less of that and the general public can go in and have a good nosy about for a small fee. It was quite interesting, I must say, there was even a certificate on
Santa Catalina Monastry
Some crazy nuns lived here a wall proving that a genuine miracle happened to one of the nuns there - she was cured of cancer. Even the doctors who operated and gave her therapy agreed.
24 February, Saturday... Another day and we thought we'd head out to the Colca Canyon tomorrow so after another morning spent in the garden before the bad weather arrived we went on a fact finding mission. It turns out that you pretty much have to do a two day trip where you do nothing on the first day then just sit on a bus most of the second day or you can leave at 1am and meet up with the day 2 people or you can do 3-4 days trekking. As trekking wasn't top of the list of things to do (save that for the Inka trail) we opted for the standard two day trip. Enough excitement and now time to hit the drink as we'd been fairly sober for the past two days. Went to some bar in the town centre after fun and games in the hostel (killer pool and jumbo jenga).
25 February, Sunday... Well it seems drinking the day before a 6am start is
Church
I don't know the name. It's on the main square not a great idea. We needed to be woken up and then went to the mini bus still stinking of booze from the day before. Needless to say we were popular on that trip. Most of the day was spent on the bus as we had suspected and not seeing very much apart from a llama. Then eating llama steak. There was a fun festival thing in the town were we stayed where people got dressed in traditional clothes then did the same dance repeatedly around the square. Happy times.
26 February, Monday... Today we'd actually see the Colca Canyon so after another bus ride with a few less interesting stops on the way we made it to the canyon and drove up to Cruz del Condor where condors were guaranteed. The canyon itself is pretty impressive, some claims to be the second deepest in the world or is that just Peru(?), there's lots of green and rocks and generally looks nice. There were even condors at this stop. On the whole though I didn't enjoy the trip - too much bus for very little actual canyon. We bused back and got on an overnight bus to Cusco as
Condor
At Cruz del Condor we hadn't had our fill of buses.
27 February, Tuesday... Bright and early arrival and out straight away to see what deals could be had on a trek to Macchu Picchu. Prices varied between about $200 and $400 but in the end we just picked one that had been recommended by a few people we'd already spoken to. If it's worth doing it's worth doing properly I say. We then headed out to the market to look for supplies where I picked up some £9 hiking boots and did a lot of faffing about. Then we headed back to a traditional restaurant as recommended by the guy who sold us the trek but turned out to be a Chinese restaurant but it doesn't matter, he still got his backhander for dropping the price for us. Then time to catch up on sleep after that hectic half day of planning, no matter how much you try it just seems impossible to get a proper night of sleep on a bus next time I'm going to take the pills I think. Wake up and time to drink. Well what else is left? Beer in the hostel comes in 1.1 litre bottles
- much better than one litre. And drinks outside seem to be free with no commitment to stay in the bar. After lots of bar hopping we headed back and feeling a bit tipsy I got chatting to a couple of prostitutes. No they were talking to me. Well they insisted they weren't prostitutes and stole my money. A friendly taxi driver called the police for me and we had a high speed ride through the town looking for the two before giving up and going to bed after calling up home worrying that my cards had been cloned. Not so happy times.
28 February, Wednesday... Woke up late. Feeling rather annoyed. Tried to coordinate with my dad about the bank cards but it seems the bank won't add a note to your file or keep an eye out they'd rather just cancel the cards. That not being ideal as any new cards would be posted home we agreed to just keep an eye on it ourselves. Movies and TV for the daytime then I felt like I needed another drink. Lesson learnt I only took about £5 in my pocket this time.
1 March, Thursday... Right enough
Church
Big ol church/cathedral in Cusco main square. Quite handy for the Irish pub too. of doing nothing in Cusco - we went to the Museo Inka. More than just Inka it goes through a whole bunch of South American religions/cultures and there are lots of ceramics there. And something about the Spanish arriving and not being very nice. Walked about a bit to see churches and walk up hills before having a couple of drinks.
2 March, Friday... Back to the market to pick up all the essentials - sunglasses (you have to look good when trekking), a hoody (the fleeces all looked nasty) and errm... some dvds. There was a talk on about the start of the walk tomorrow but they seemed to just repeat the whole sales pitch we'd already heard. Oh and they told us not to eat chicken and get an early night so we went out to eat chicken and drink beer after. Rock and roll.
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