We've actually been to Cusco twice now. The first time round was an adventure in altitude sickness pills, horse riding and Guinea pigs.

Cusco was the capital city of the Inca's and it means "navel". It got this name because it sits right in the middle of the Inca empire that was. It's a place to see Inca stonework and drink Guiness whilst watching Peru's favourite sport (which they're not that great at) - football.

We arrived after a plan and bus rude from Lima. Our hotel was comfy and not having to spend half the day finding it was something that Si and I really appreciated.

Our Chief Experience Officer, Ruben took us for a gentle tour of the city. He showed us the remains of the mighty I ca Sun Tenple (who's name I forget) which was almost totally demolished by the Spanish and a church put up in it's place. He also took us on a tour of the local market where we learnt that Peruvians also buy bile in bottles, there are 3000 varieties of potato and that local food is rich and also likely to give us a squiffy belly if we're not careful. We then had lunch and a bit of time to relax before meeting up in the evening.

Si and I relaxed by looking around a cathedral which was pretty staggeringly opulent and then headed back to join the group.

A lot of people were suffering altitude sickness by this point so not many people fancied dinner. So and I were on Diamox (or the generic version thereof) and so we - along with a few others - got to experience tingling extremities instead of nausea and pounding headaches. Definitely the better choice in my opinion.

The next day we went horse riding. It was vet nice and met a lovely Australian couple and saw some Inca temples that you really wouldn't know we're there unless you'd been told. They were narrow caves carved from rock outcrops. One was apparently used for sacrifices and offering there are still common. The hires riding but was good too - there was one slightly hair-raising moment when both mine and Simin's horses were spooked by another horse and mine started to head towards the road. I managed to control it enough that it didn't get us both run over, but our riding guide did lead me for a bit afterwards!

After a coffee in town, we went back to the hotel to find that the quadbike tour that the rest of the group had been on was quite good, but perhaps not as good as our horse-riding (probably because there were just so many of them - only Si and I had chosen the horse-riding and about 10 of them went quad biking).

That evening we had a very memorable dinner with the group in the form of guinea pig. I (Bethan) didn't actually eat any but Si did and absolutely loved it. Apparently there's not much meat on a g-pig but it's nice enough. Me calling his meal Scamp didn't seem to put him off! ;-)

We also made pisco sours (which are Peru's national drink according to Ruben) which are a cocktail made with Pisco, Sugar syrup, lime juice and a raw egg. You then put them in a shaker with some ice and shake them until the ice melts. It's hard work, but they're absolutely delicious!

The next morning, bright and early, we packed our bags for Ollantaytambo and the sacred valley.