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Published: March 21st 2008
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Thursday 20th March We all seemed to sleep well, headed out into the city with Ana, Linda and Mark. Spent much of the morning in an internet café/photo shop trying to get my photos onto DVD, but one of my SD cards has a fault. Can see the photos on the camera, but not on the computer. Start to move the pictures 5 at a time from SD card to camera to new SD card, delete and start again (793 pics on this card). It's painful but at least I'll know for sure I have my pics and can add to blog at some point. Spent the afternoon wandering Cusco taking photos, buying postcards/cloth badges, checking out the shops, and buying cold meds (signal langiage is amazing!). In the evening finally got to go to Jacq's, and had a Mediterranean Salad - beautiful! Others are going out but feel very (cold) ropey, so decide to go to bed instead.
Friday 21st March Breakfast by 830 as we're collected 9am to go horse-riding. $US35 was the cost, but we're then told we need S/40 for tickets to the ruins, and another S/15 in tips! Our driver shows us the first site,
a sacred site containing images of puma/snake/condor - the 3 images of the Incas. Getting pretty cold so we head off towards the horses. Horseriding at Linda, Adriana, Rachel, Rod & I, plus Christina from another GAP group. Only Rod has really ridden before (I had a 10p ride at school, and 1 hour in Devon over 20 years ago). We are given gentle horses (aka slow, also), and try and work out what we should do with them, but I think we're just along for the ride! We meet our guide, Edwin, who's had to give up his horse as so many groups are riding today. After only about 5 minutes we're off the horses and seeing inside a moonlight cave where shamen ceremonies are held.
Back on the horses and we go for a much longer ride, with Edwin encouraging the horses to gallop, etc. Quite scary when you don't feel in control! Our horses also seem to be spending a lot of time relieving themselves in one way or another - Christina and I are not sure which of us has the horse which farts the most (and Linda keeps getting stuck behind mine). We stop
in a small village to check out the prosperity symbols on the top of houses, give Christina a chance to try corn beer, and walk onto Puca Pucara, our next ruins to visit. We get side-tracked by a 5 day old llama, photo opportunities (don't forget to tip the owner). Edwin tells us about the storage, etc of this place, points out the other ruins, but we decide to spend more time at the next place. We walk back to the horses - bit more painful to get on this time. We walk back through some beautiful scenery, and then Edwin finds an area where he really wants us to go faster... This goes wrong for me as my foot comes out of the left stirrup, my horse does a 90 degree turn to the left, and I come flying off. Fortunately nothing bruised/broken, but I'm not too keen to trot again (do give it a go though). We head through some woods, across a road, down a steep slope - where Rachel falls off as her horse stumbles. Now, we're at Saqsaywaman (yes, sounds like Sexy Woman), where we head in for some daft photos. We were going up
to Cristo Blanco, but everyone's too tired/saddlesore so we take photos from a distance. The driver was to take us, but the fact wasn't communicated, so we headed back to the city and went for a late lunch... Another salad in Jacq's. An afternoon of pottering about is followed by another meal in Jacq's - bean enchilladas this time. See a Catholic procession head past in celebration of Good Friday. Too tired/feverish to go out tonight too - tomorrow for sure?!
Saturday 22nd March Today is a true rest day... Stay in bed most of the morning reading. Get up and decide to head to Jacq's for brunch... Still haven't had one of their legedary breakfasts. Run into Linda, Stuart, Adriana and Rachel who are also heading that way. By the time get to the restaurant feel sick again, so lunch is a Mango Lassi, a banana, a bread roll and back to bed for the afternoon with my book/camera (finished transferring) and postcards. By the evening feel much better so get showered, dressed up and head out to Fallen Angel (another gay restaurant), where the décor is incredibly funky, and several of the tables have fish-baths in them.
Sit on a bed heaped with PVC cushions, then dig into steak (house speciality)... Went for red wine/rosemary, but there were about 15 options for sauces. Tasty meal... And they re-decorated my steak when I sent it back to be a bit less rare! Nice glass of wine, then we headed to the Irish pub, catching the end of Happy Hour, before heading to Mama Africa's, a small club. They wanted S/10 for entry, but as a group we blagged our way in. Some good music (although Mark/Stuart said it was same as last 2 nights), some fun dancing, then about 1am it got too crowded - no space to dance. Us English/Australians are far too used to smoke-free venues so that pushed us out earlier too. Back at the hotel by about 130am (last 2 nights they've been 3am), read a bit and more deep sleep!
Managed to upload photos for Pisco and my birthday. Nazca and Arequipa still to come, along with the text! Off to Puno Sunday - long bus journey!
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