Blogs from Cusco, Cusco, Cusco, Peru, South America - page 50

A new day, a new city. For breakfast, I have bread with butter and jam and coca tea. Hmmmm...reminds me of when I was small and we had bread with Red Rose tea for breakfast. A lot of hostel guests complain about the breakfast but I don't mind. I head out with Sofia to the market. We wonder the streets of Cusco before splitting up for lunch. I head back to the burger place and she heads back to the market to eat with the locals. I didn't think the market was clean enough to eat at. I really don't want to get sick before my tour. At the burger joint, the owner's son (around 3 years old) tries to serve me by giving me random items. His mom keeps running after him taking away the ... read more

I am writing this from the beautiful city of Cusco... an amalgamation of tumbling down houses, colonial architecture and Inca buildings. The streets are full of hawkers, eager to sell you the touristy things; hats, gloves, dolls, cigarettes...anything and everything. The weather is cold but the sun is strong. I have fallen in love with the place. We arrived early afternoon into the Capital of the Incas and straight away set about exploring this fasincating and colourful city. From the bustling cetral plaza we found it easy to explore the different areas of the city. The following day, with our guide Helga, we visted The sacred vally; Ollantaytambo, Pisac. Pisac´s ancient citadel is set in an inposing position, enclosed between high hills and set amongst agricultural terraces. Set above a valley floor patchworked by different coloured ... read more

I returned to Cuzco and spent a few days getting ready for the next part of my trip. I'd planned to go through Bolivia and then on to Argentina before heading for Brazil and the end of my voyage. Che Guevara had joined me in China, had been with me every step of the way since then and I wanted to bring him home to Argentina. I'd sublet my apartment to someone and we'd each made a commitment to the other: I not to return before mid-February 2009 and her not to leave before then. In mid-November she sent me an email saying she was going to move out on 15 December. Without her covering the cost of my rent, I was not going to be able to continue the trip. I pointed out that we'd ... read more

Tyler says ¨Lets Go Hawk´s´´ can you believe he´s thinking about football in Peru! Just kidding, we have some time to kill before we see an Andean dance exposition and it´s raining outside. We have had a big two days. Yesterday we mailed postcards, and it was ridiculously expensive, so if you get one from either of us you should feel very special (and that we knew your address). Qoricancha is what we visited yesterday, if you do a google image search for that or some spelling of that, you´ll see some of the beautiful pictures. Here is an example-http://bltourscusco.com/fotos_city/qoricancha.jpg It gets confusing because some things are spelled different in Spanish, English, and then Quecha (not sure on spelling) which is the language spoken in the mountains. It is massive ruins pretty much in the middle ... read more

1st day of service was a blast! The childcare group was split into three groups in the morning - my group which is Emily, Kristin, and Anita went to a boys and girls orphanage. The other groups worked at an all irls orphanage and with special needs children. The moment we walked into the orphanage the children ran up to us and welcomed us with hugs. They also wanted to know our names, and they quized me on knowing theirs (I did badly). We took some of the smaller ninos to the park and played futbol. We also played "lift me up so i can hang off the goal post" and "spin me around" OVER AND OVER. Once you did one thing with one, they ALL had to do it too. It was very fun, even ... read more