The ride to Cusco is pretty uneventful until the driver hits a dog. Poor thing went with a few bumps. Hope it survived with just bumps and bruises.

We have the taxi drill down to a fine art now only getting into official looking taxis, requesting ID if we are unsure and getting the price before we go anywhere. Our habitacion for Cusco was up a steep hill near the centre and has all you can drink coca tea. We take a wander around Cuscu the capital of the Inca and Andrew treats himself and his ongoing sore neck to a massage. An hour later I go to meet a much younger looking Andrew. Must have been a good massage!

The next day we get a bus 5km out of town in the green rugged countryside to visit some of the Inca ruins. Unlike Angkor Wat the pace is of our making and we are hardly bothered by touts and local vendors. Bliss. These ruins, Tambomachay & Puka Pukara were the starting place for a new hobby entitled "how many different stories can we be told for the same piece of history". Our first port of information was a gentleman who claimed to have a studied local archaeology at Cusco University and had a touristica ID card for good measure. He showed us that in the stone walls there were actually pictures. This seemed to me much like imagining objects in clouds. We saw an odd looking guinea pig, a fish and a flower. We were also told that we should stand in a particular spot on the top of this particular ruin, close our eyes, take in a deep breath and feel the vibes from the quartz below. We should feel energised. Not so sure about that. He claimed that the Inca people used this to tell them about Mother Earth (Pachamama) and things such as when the next season of the year would come. We headed back to Cusco along the road by foot towards 2 remaining ruins without further commentary, admiring the view and wondering when the big black clouds overhead would empty. After 30 minutes the rain started so we decided to make a beeline for the last ruin known as Saqsaywaman (try and say that after a few piscos!). We took what we thought was a short cut only to find the road had been washed away at some point so a little scrambling was involved to get back on track. After a further 10 minutes and a game of 'Os' we arrived and were quickly intercepted by an official to check we had the correct tickets to be there. No Problemo.

Saqsaywaman looks like a big fort. The rocks are carefully carved fitting together with precision. Impressive work! Back in Cusco we headed off for dinner and treated our selves to a local delicacy of roast guinea pig. I was a little nervous about this especially as I'm a big fan of the pet critters back home and was the proud owner of 6 cuy as a child. We had managed to negotiate free pisco sours with our meal so I hoped this would take some of my nervousness away. The guinea pig arrived whole like you might expect a roast pig to arrive in medieval times (minus the apple) but obviously much smaller. Much to our disappointment and maybe some of yours we didn't have a camera for the occasion. The waiter calved the little fella into 3 and with hand gestures and broken Spanglish told us to use our hands not knives and forks. Ok. I was a little repulsed by this prospect especially as the little guy was mostly intact and very much looking like a slippery guinea pig or a rat. I turned the little fella to face Andrew who bravely dug straight in. Luckily for me Andrew picked up the head and set about getting what meat he could from this. I'm told that the cheek was quite meaty. I reluctantly went for the middle section of which I skilfully removed the slimy revolting skin with my knife and fork and then gingerly picked it up with my hands and set to work trying to find the meaty bits. This is not that easy as guinea pigs don't have that much meat. When I did get a decent chunk the meat tasted like the dark meat of a chicken but a little more gamey. So all in all the roast guinea pig was much better then expected and a good addition to the list of strange meats we had tried so far on our world trip.