After making the Amazon our home for so long, the Andes mountains which stretches the entire length of South America has become our new home and will continue to be so for the remainder of our time in South America. We will follow these immense mountains for the next few months. And so onto Cusco 11,000ft up in the Andes. Cusco is the nearest town to the most famous archealogical site in South America - Macchu Picchu - and the majority of visitors to the area use the town as a base for their trip. The town is based around the main Plaza which is very pretty but perhaps not quite as polished as the one in Arequipa. Cusco sits in a bowl and is surrounded by mountains on all sides all of which are home to many Inca ruins as Cusco was once the capital of the Inca empire. One of the key expeditions in the area is a three day walk along the Inca Trail which gradually takes you to Macchu Picchu. Unfortunatly we were not able to get onto an organised tour as it is now necessary to make arrangements a month in advance - Machu Picchu (MP) is now a UNESCO protected site, as there are concerns about the number of visitors and the impact to the ruins, so only a limited number can visit the trails each day. As it did little but rain for the first few days we were here (often torrentially) we were actually quite glad to be sleeping in a hotel room not a tent. On the second day in the town we met up once again with Susana and Juan, who had been with us in Arequipa and the Colca Canyon. We decided to make our own way to MP and into the bargain hire a guide to take us into the surrounding Sacred Valley which is full of the Inka remains, including cities, forts and ceremonial buildings. Many of the areas are characterised by steep terraces which the Incas built in order to provide flat ground for crops. There is a huge amount of work in getting stones high up into the mountain and is quite a feat of engineering. The final stop was in a town called Ullambatay which is the start point for the final stretch of the journey to the town of Aguas Caliente (meaning hot waters) which is at the base of MP mountain. Belive it or not this final stretch is carried out by train, which is apparently owned by a British Company - Peru has sold off just about all its assets in the last few years to foreign companies, including roads, railways and utilities. We were obviously very surprised therefore when the train left on time and arrived ahead of schedule! However, we did have a few gripes before hand about the price (same old British Rail). Whilst we paid $24 each for a return ticket, locals only pay $3 return - the local gringo tax once again kicking in. However, half way through the journey the train stopped again and we were pretty glad of our reasonably comfortable carriage that had only one person per seat, as 100 locals crowded the other carriages of the train desperate to get to Aguas Caliente (AC) - their carriages were so full that people were hanging onto the sides of the train. What we hadn't known was that there was a festival in AC this particular weekend to celebrate the 6th anniversary of AC becoming a town in its own right. To celebrate the fact the local town council had invited the Peruvian version of the Spice Girls - The Earthquakers, to do a turn in the main Plaza on Saturday night and it was such a hot ticket that people were prepared to do pretty much anything to get there. Because the town was so busy for the fetival it was the most difficult time we have had getting a hotel room - but eventually managed a reasonable place not too far from the main square. The following day, we decided not to do the sunrise trip to MP and took the bus to the top of the mountain for an 8am start. To see the sunrise we would have had to have started off at around 4am and walked up the mountain in the dark and as it was raining and heavily misty we would not have seen the sunrise anyway - sensibley we stayed in bed for those few extra hours!. MP lies high up in the mountains and seems precariously perched at about 5,550 ft. When entering the MP site you do so by walking up and around a corner so that the whole spleandour of the site appears before you. It is quite amazing to see an entire city at the top of the mountain with mist rolling all around you and sheer drops below the city. It is a fairly extensive place with both residential buildings with work and storage areas nearby, as well as the obligatory ceremonial buildings (Sun and Moon buildings for example) used to make offerings to the Gods. Apparently, it was a town built at the height of the Inca empire by one particular Inca family and took 150 years to complete. They never grew any foods for themselves and relied on the local people to keep the town supplied with foodstuffs. The site is reputed to lie of lay lines (or energy lines) which are connected to Stonehenge and the Nazca lines and is said to have a spiritual significance. The many terraces you can see in the photos were used as laborotories, growing specimen and medicinal plants. Two brothers of the Clan were finally the downfall of the town and there was basically a civil war between their two parts of the family. Eventually the local people were too afraid to visit the town and so the food supply stopped and people either died or had to leave. They reputedly just left and vanished into the jungle. After such an incredfible amount of work to build the city it seems a huge waste. The site became very overgrown and was not discovered again until 1911 when Higham Bingham, an American explorer, was told about the site by some local people. Tourism then started to take off in the late 1940s with the introduction of the railroad and the development of the town at the bottom of the mountain. MP is now the biggest revenue earner for tourism in the whole of South America. Later that night we returned to Aguas Caliente to take a look at the festivities for the anniversary celebrations - we have not seen anything quite like it before. You would have thought that Peruvians had never seen or drunk beer before - we have never seen so many people drunk and virtually passed out on the floor - all by 9pm. The great thing was that everyone took part and the whole town seemed to be dancing - Juan even got one old woman up for a blast, though then had some difficulty escaping again! We also reckoned that it must have been the main event of the year for the single women to pick up the man of their dreams and we felt pretty sorry for some poor guys that were being dragged up to dance by 2 or 3 beefy women at a time - literally kicking and screaming! Anyway, everyone seemed to have fun and the repetitive drone of the Earthquakers seemed to be a huge success. The following day was another early start on the 05.45 train back to Ullambatay and then back to Cusco. After having ventured further afield it was nice to be back in a town and we really felt that there was a comfortable small town feel to the whole place. The whole world certainly felt like a small place when on one evening we had arranged to meet up with an old school pal of Chris', who now lives here in Cusco. A few of you looking in on the site will remember Gary Sargeant from school - well he is now married to Melka, who is originally from Cusco and he is involved in the tourist industry as a guide around the local area, having lived in Peru for 3 years. It was great for them to catch up and reminisce about old times - quite a few stories came out that Carol had not heard before! We came out of the hotel today to a major street parade, starting around the Plaza de Armas. You will have seen the photos of other parades and processions in other cities so this is obviously a major thing for the Peruvians. The thing that really amazed us is that they do this on the first Sunday of every month. We hung around for at least 1.5 hours and we must only have seen about 10% of the floats and individual groups. This particular procession happened to coincide with the National Day of Tourism - so every one was getting in on the act and there were separate displays from the Cusco school for chefs, the school for hotel reservations, party organisers and the like - we had great fun cheering them on - more so because the locals thought we were being serious when shouting "go the Chefs", in true USa Ryder cup style. Tonight we are meeting up with Gary again at his apartment for a few more of those previously forgotten stories and after that we will have our last meal with Susana and Juan who fly home to Spain tomorrow. For us it is then back on the road tomorrow ........ next stop is Bolivia and Lake Titicaca.