The Most Expensive Lemon Meringue Pie Ever!!

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The Lemon Meringue Pie

The last time we left you we were on our way to Cusco and having been on a bit of a whirl wind tour of Peru so far, we decided when we arrived in Cusco we´d just take a few days to chill and aclimatise to the altitude and sus out the tours and sights we wanted to see. We also went along and checked out the local markets which were quite interesting to say the least everything is set out in trades, rows of fruit and veg, then rows of stalls selling chocolate, then flowers then the ceramics, rugs and clothes followed by mini restaurants then the meat section which had brians and intestines hanging over the counter along with live frogs in buckets, Sue couldn´t handle this section but my sick curiousity made me venture in alone, although the smell was so over powering it even made my stomach flip a few times.

We eventually booked our Choquequirao the lost city of the incas trip over 4 days 3 nights, with a company called Jenly Adventures, not the cheapest ($250 each) but they seemed quite proffesional. However we decided to hang fire with Machu Picchu trip as there had been a land slide and the train was not running, but we did leave $60 each so he could book us our train tickets and we could decide whether we wanted to join someone elses tour or go independently.

The next day we met up with Tim and Andy the Ozzies who just seem to be following us around everywhere we go, and decided to go for a coffee and cake at a nice little bakery in San Blas, where we´d had breakfast the previous morning. This turned out to be the biggest mistake we´d made so far this trip, we were due to be picked up at 2.45am to set off on our trek but a few hours before this I felt the rumbling that all travellers dread. A few minutes later I had taken up residencey in the bathroom violently performing all the symptoms of classic food poisioning. 2.45am came and still unable to move from the bathroom Sue had to go to see the guide and tell him we were unable to make the trip who told her that we were likely to lose about 80% of our money as we were the only ones on the trip and everything still had to be paid for, bugger! Oh and had I mentioned that over the 4 hours (so far) of my residency in the bathroom that the water had been switched off. So Sue bless her playing the perfect little Florence Nightingale went in search of water to refill the cistern. About two more hours of the same continued untill I felt secure enough to return to bed, upon which Sue jumped out of bed and performed the encore!

Previously our Landlady had come out to see us off and being told we were to stay a few more days and the reasons why brought me the local remedy of some herbs and Coca leaves in hot water which just about stayed where it was supposed too and I´m sure it did help.

It took a couple more days till either of us could eat anything like a full meal, so after a day or so we headed down to see our tour agency armed with the knowledge from our land lady we should get at least 40% back, and after a rather calm argument he upped his offer of 20%!t(MISSING)o 30%!,(MISSING) to which we threatend to call in the tourist police which made him sit a little bit more uncomfortably, Sue then butted in with if had to pay no more for our Machu Pichu and Sacred Valley tour we´d be happy, to which he umm´d and arrr´d to the point we were about to walk out he quickly made his mind up and accepted our offer.

The City Tour

After been in Cusco for 5 days and having seen nothing except the inside of bars, restraunts, cafes and toilet bowls we decided it was time to see some of the sights Cusco has to offer. We jumped into a cab and headed off to Tambo Machay one of five Inca ruins around Cusco, after about an hour of looking at something we didn´t really understand or have a clue what it was we headed off to Puku Pukara, a Fortress destroyed by the spanish on there way to Cusco, again finding it hard to get excited by some half destroyed inca stone work we headed off to Qenqo, a temple used by the Incas to worship the Sun, this time we decided to get a guide to explain what everything was as she was only asking for 10 soles (less than 2 quid), this made a differance as we actually understood the hypothesis that they had and the possible uses of the temple. We decided to hire our guide once again to explain the theories of Sacsayhuaman (pronounced similar to sexy-woman). Sacsayhuaman is probably the most impressive ruin we´ve seen to date with massive stones carved from quarries several kilometers away, some of these stone weighing upto 120 tons each! The stones are laid perfectly in a zig-zag formation, which makes the archiologist think it was a temple to the lighting god as well as the sun.

The Sacred Valley

Now motivated to get back into tourist mode, we met up with our tour operator for the Scared Valley Tour. First stop Taray markets selling all the usual cermaics and baby alpaca goods you´ll see if you ever visit Peru, still we bought some. The next stop Pisac market a much larger market selling all the usual cermaics and baby alpac goods you´ll see if you ever visit Peru, and we bought some more. We had a quick lunch stop at Urubamba then onto the next stop on our whirlwind tour was Ollantaytambo another impressive Inca ruin used for argriculture and a temple. The soil used in the ruin was imported form other parts of the inca empire as it as more fertile and produced better crops, untill the spanish got there and destroyed it, begining to see a pattern here. We left our group here as we were to catch the train to Aguas Callentes the stop over point for Machu Picchu. Having several hours to wait for our train we decided to play with our draught set we bought from one of the markets earlier in the day. We quickly became the locals tourist attraction with several kids watching our every move. I then challengend one of the kids to play Sue at draughts for a prize fund of 1 sole, to which he made quick work and kicked her ass big style and run off with the prize fund!

Machu Picchu

Not wanting to share Machu Picchu with the 2,000 other tourist that visit daily we woke up at 5am to get the first bus up there only to find we had to wait for some trekkers that had done an alternative Inca trail that was running late, and after a tour that lasted 2 hours, and the explaination that Hiram Bingham didn´t actually descover Machu Picchu he was shown it by some indgious people that were actually living in it at the time, and all the usually hypothesis surrounding Machu Picchu´s exististance, we were suprised that there was still very few tourist wandering around, so we headed striaght up Huayna Picchu (the peak behind Machu Picchu you see on all the classic post cards) for a Photo oportunity.

About 70% of Machu Picchu is original and the rest is restoration which had previously been damaged by the jungle (couldn´t blame the Spanish for this one, as they never found it) unlike other inca ruins the restoration work is of a high standard and only the ongoing restoration work spoils the scenery. Overall Machu Picchu is a fantastic sight even if it is subject to mass tourism and worth the vist to Peru alone.

We returned from Machu Picchu to Cusco by train that evening for a brief overnight stay and a final catch up with Andy and Tim (The Aussies) before we all went our seperate ways. We had arranged to meet Andy and Tim at a really cool little live music and tapas bar called 0km near San Blas as we had been there twice before and seen some excellent live music and we wanted them to see the man who played the box! There is this man that all he does is sit on this wooden box and he plays the percussion on this box and with his mouth, it is amazing I wouldnt have thought you could get so many different sounds out of a wooden box! Unfortunately when we got there it was his night off and it was a comedy type singer, which was good music but we were the only ones not laughing at the lyrics as we couldnt understand! Given we all had early starts the next day and the man with the box wasnt there after a few obligatory beers we headed off to our hostel for a reasonale night!

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Photos

At the local Markets
The fruit drinks section

Volcanic rock slides at Sacsayhauman
Didn´t have time to have a go though, as it started raining

Impressive Inca walling
Sue and our guide next to one of the 120 ton stones transported several kilometers carved to fit with absolute perfection

Comments

[Sarah Milnes]

I sympathise!
Ah, sorry to hear you got ill, I know how that feels!! It is all part of the travellers experience though, so it has to be done at some point. It's great to read about all the places I've been (and not been). I must say Sue, you look impressed by the llama!! he he. looking forward to the next installment, take care both of you. xx

[Sarah Hinchliffe]

An awesome reminder of Machu Pichu for me thanks.
Hi you two. Thank you for that trip down memory lane, thankfully my trip didnt include the food poisoning section! You poor things. Im glad you made a swift recovery and continued on your trip. I missed out all the last months entries so have printed them out to read tonight at home. The pics of venuzuela look AMAZING especially the top of the mountain and the falls. Take Care you two - Gareth and I miss you both. xxx ps Say Hola to Aydy.