Day 100 - Our centenary!

We arrived at Cuzco at 6:30am on a very sunny morning, and after some confusion over who had the luggage tickets (I turned out to be right) we took a taxi to Niños hotel, which is really, really nice and is set up to support local children. We sat in the courtyard and had a really good breakfast before taking another taxi to the Peru treks office and paying for our Inca Trail trek that starts on Friday. After a run down of the trek and giving us our duffel bags for the chaskis to carry, we walked back into town and to the beautiful Plaza de Armas (you may have noticed by now that every town in South America has one of those). We changed the return train tickets to avoid coming back to Cuzco at midnight and went to meet Henry, who just so happened to be in Cuzco!

Henry invited us for lunch at his family´s home, so he and his cousin Miguel picked us up and drove us a little out of downtown Cuzco to their home, on the way stopping to collect his 5 year old neice, Stephanie, from school. The house has been built on community land surrounded by eucalyptus trees and has a great views of Cuzco down the valley and mountains around; very tranquilo. Henry´s Aunt Fanny cooked us an incredible lunch of trout, rice, cheese, corn and potatoes from the tiniest ´kitchen´I have ever seen. It was officially termed Mum´s best meal in Peru. His unkle (who Henry doesn´t remember the name of as he just calls him tio) made sure we had plenty of Inka Cola and Cusqueña beer to drink. They were so lovely, and luckily Henry is a good translator!

I went to use the loo and as I was leaving Tio told me there was no door, but the view was nice! We gathered on the terrace that Tio is single-handedly building as an extension to his home and were brought yet more beer. Fiesta! Henry, Mum, Alex, myself and Boff the dog then went for a walk through the eucalyptus trees, down to the river and along to the pretty cemetary. The sun was fully out and we had to cover Alex up with my scarf before she burnt to a crisp. On our return Fanny brought us yet more beer to quench our thirst and once we were offically beered-out we took a local bus (with lots of mutual staring) back to downtown. It was such a nice afternoon.

In the centro we walked about 5 blocks back to the hotel through the commerical area, and despite our intentions of meeting Henry later and going out, the moment I sat on my bed I was done for the night. The three of us justified soup in the hotel restaurant and were in bed by 8:30.

Day 101 - Today we headed out to do our own walking tour of Cuzco, starting at the Plaza de Armas through Plazas Regocijo and San Francisco and to the church of Santa Clara. The church is rarely open to the public, but we were lucky enough to take a look inside - the whole interior covered in mirrors which the clergy used to entice indigenous folks into the church! At the back there was a nun section separated by latticed screens, but behind we saw a couple of nuns sat in their pews.

Next stop was the Mercado San Pedro, along the main commerical street and to Avenida el Sol, past the palace of Justice and on to the post office to buy postcards and stamps. We took the narrow, cobbled street of Loretto towards the plaza de Armas, which is flanked by two amazing Incan walls: the precision and workmanship were quite astounding. Who knew walls could be so exciting? Mum especially loved them! We then headed uphill to the San Blas area of Cuzco doin a little shopping on the way. We chanced upon a great cafe called Jacks for a fruit juice and then continued upwards for great views of the city. The whole city seems to be teeming with colonial buildings, cobbled streets with steps and Incan irrigation channels. After enough walking we returned to Jacks for lunch.

In the afternoon we returned to the Plaza de Armas to sort out any necessary equipment for tomorrows hike, and as Alex went off to do some drawing, Mum and I visited the ruins of Qorikancha, which has two eras of Incan architecture and the colonial church and monastery of Santo Domingo built on top. There is still a great deal of evidence of the Incan temple, which was the richest temple in the Incan Empire - amazing stonework, including a 6 metre high, curved wall that has survived countless earthquakes in Cuzco, plus a 14-sided, enormous stone holding another temple wall up.

Later afternoon we returned to the hotel to sort our things out for tomorrow. This included trying to pay the bill, which featured me arguing with the receptionist about the price of something, only to discover I was wrong and so then apologised profusely. Oops. We decidedly to think like an athlete for dinner and so went for carbs... pasta. Being halloween the entire city was absolutely stuffed with people, and in the Plaza de Armas we could hardly move without treading on a little person dressed as some kind of animal. We then dropped Mum off at the hotel and continued up the hill to Loki hostel - a reknowned party hostel and the lodging of Andrew and Guiliano (of Huaraz fame), who had arrived in Cuzco earlier in the day. There was a full-on halloween party happening, which neither Alex nor I was dressed for. It was good to see those Americans again (abeit with the Dutch girls who replaced us in tow... luckily they´re really nice) and Henry came along too. I got back to the hotel around 1pm for 3 hours sleep before waking up (half an hour before the alarm) at 4:15am... not ideal hiking preparation, but with hindsight, having survived the Inca Trail, I can now say that it was worth it.