We stayed in Cusco for 8 nights in total, 3 before the Inca trail and 5 after. It is a really nice city, although very touristy. We had a nice hostel a 15 minute walk from the main square. We arrived late from La Paz the day before my birthday. We had a lot of trouble fidning the hostel we´d booked as it wasn´t on the road it said it was on. It was really annying wandering around at night with a big backpack tired after a long journey. We also got ripped off by the taxi driver who, as usual tried to persuade us that he knew a much better hostel and why didn´t we go there instead. We were pretty grumpy when we finally made it, but it was a nice hostel.

We had a couple of days in Cusco to get ready for the Inca trail. We managed to hire bags and walking poles very cheaply from a shop in the town centre, and also got some cheap plastic rains ponchos. Every night after it got dark in rained really heavily for hours and we were told it was best to be prepared for bad weather. We had a look around the main square and nearby streets. It is all very pretty and nice, and a lot of the orignal inca walls are preserved, although the spanish knocked down all their temples to build churches. Their are a lot of people trying to sell you stuff, and people dressed up in traditional costumes/with llamas of dressed up as Incas offering to pose for photos. We ended up having a photo with some local women, cos we´d tried to take one without them noticing but they ran after us and demanded payment.

For my birthday Alan got me a nice wooley jumper and we also went shopping becuase they have a lot of nice cheap woolens and other stuff for sale. Alan got a jumper with llamas on and i got some legwarmers and a bag because my toher on has finally given up, and broken. We manged to locate an Indian restuarent, which we were told was the only on in Peru so we went there for a birthday treat. We have been craving something spicy for some time and the fod here is pretty bland. It was ok, but not that great, we´ll have to wait until we get home for a proper curry I reckon.

When we got back from the Inca trail we had a few days relaxing. We had a ton of gross laundry to do, we were pretty stinky when we eventually made it back to Cusco. Wecrashed out, as we had been up since 4am. The night after we got back we when out on a night out with most of the people from our trip. It was good to have fun after all our efforts! Our guide came out later too which was nice. The next day I was slightly hungover and made us go to McDonalds (the shame).

After that we had a couple of cheap days not doing much. Alan managed to watch football in the hostel so he was happy. We booked a bus to Arequipa in the evening, and a couple in our hostel recommended us a hostel there and a tour company, which was nice. Before we left we had some local Peruvian food at a neary place that had just opened and was extremely cheap. Only three things on the menu though, and all beef. Good to try the local stuff though. After that we headed down the bus station for the relatively short 12hr journey to Arequipa.