Cusco

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I know that this might not make sense to those reading back home, but we have gotten a little tired of travelling at the moment. Don't get me wrong, we love the sights we've seen they've been remarkable, the treks, food, people, weather all have been fanstatic. But right now we are craving a small bit of normalcy, we want to stay put, unpack our backpacks into a drawer, stop, take a breath, reflect some and appreciate what we've seen and done. So that's exactly what we did in Cusco, we put our feet up, found an Irish pub and relaxed and regrouped.

Now might be a good time then to update everyone on some of the general apects of our adventure thus far.

Accommodation: We've been largely staying in Hostels across South America and been hugely surprised by the standards generally speaking.



Spanish: I've got nothing, I can say thank-you and beer please, pretty sad for 5 months of travelling but then again I seem to be doing just fine. Sandra's spanish is far superior to mine and she has assumed the role of spokesperson, when her spanish fails she is found of saying, "Sometimes its quickier to teach other people English than us Spanish."



Taxi cabs: We try our best to avoid as much as possible as we've found they just don't know where they are going, which seems to be a prerequisite given their choosen occupation. In one instance we asked to go to the bus station in a major city, the cab driver needed to ask for directions 6 times in order to find the bus station (a pretty unobsecure destination choice) we ended up being 30 minutes late for our bus, but its south america so it hadn't left yet.

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Photos

Cusco
Cusco was the capital of the Inca empire and the city is actually the shape of a puma, though it cannot be seen by this picture.

Inca Ruins
These ruins are thought to be baths with the rectangular spaces above thought to be seats for nobility.

Paddy's Pub
This is the Peruvian verison of the Irish bar we visit with Sandra's family in Spain. What can I say, Irish bars are now a big part of my life after meeting Sandra, no Guinness on tap though.

After Paddy's
This is the view from our hotel overlooking the city. Somewhat surprising this picture, as it is a remarkable resemblance to how I was actually seeing the world at the time.

Workmanship
It really amazed us how well built the walls and buildings were, especially given the fact they are more than 600 years old. The Inca's did not use mortar so all these rocks were hand crafted to fit perfectly with their neighbouring stones. Although not clear in this picture this is actually a curved section of the wall which makes the craftmanship even more impressive.