Our stay in Cusco

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Hola! Today was our third day in Cusco. Yesterday Juan and Maria (our names on our train tickets) took a long train ride to Machu Picchu. The train ride allowed us to see the beautiful countryside. The mountains are awesome but the living conditions that we saw from the train were very depressing. I did not realize the magnitude of the poorness of this place, even the beatiful view that we see from afar is in fact the ugly reality when looking at it close up. We saw farms and farm animals like goats, donkeys, cows, chicken, believe it or not it was pretty exciting. When we arrived to Machu Picchu, it started raining but as Jhan said it adds to the mystery of this place. The bus ride to the top of the mountain was crazy, we were up there with the clouds. The place is amazing especially its location. We walked around the lost city of the Incas, their houses, gardens and sacred spaces. And of course we found our first Russian there.

Since it was raining yesterday, there were no Alpacas out there so they didnt stop Jhan from eating them for dinner last night. But trust me, I dont think he will be eating them anymore. Today we did meet some Alpacas and took some pictures with them and the locals. We had an all day bus tour that took us around amazing archaelogical sites, old inca towns. Their architecture is very impressive and hard to imagine how they accomplished building such cities. For hours today, we were traveling between mountains, on mountains, around mountains, I cant get enough of them. The amazing thing is that the farmers have their fields all over these mountains, even at the very top. I have no idea how they find the strength to get all the way to the top to work the fields. Life is definetely not the easiest around here.

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