So we flew from the Galapagos to Guayaquil then to Lima, spent a quick night in Lima and then flew to Cusco, the main town close to Machu Pichu. Our hotel in Cusco was really cool, it was a former Monastery and had a gorgeous courtyard and really cool rooms.

We spent the afternoon in Cusco going to see some very boring ruins and then shopping. The shopping turned out to be quite interesting. Candice came upon a jewlery store she liked and tried to enter but the door was locked. Then a guy came to the door and let her in because he said she had a good aura. He proceeded to tell her about her colors her stone and her personality. It turns out this guy was actually mentioned in the lonely planet guide book and he showed Candice another article that had been written about his powers as well. We definitely got the Cusco spiritual experience. . Then Anita Waxberg went to try and he kept her in there for a long time. He told her how she had had seven lives and was a bird and butterfly in previous lives because she was always moving so fast. She said she was a medicine woman and in her other lives she understoof other people but no one understood her. He told her she needed to bury a necklace once a month and make wishes every time she barried it and on the 11th month she could make a wish for someone else. Crazy. Jenny and Lauren never got in because he only allowed one person in at a time and so other people were always in there. Or they just have bad auras and were never allowed in!

We ate dinner at the hotel that night because there was a Peruvian dance show and the next morning woke up bright and early (as usual) to train to Machu Pichu. Machu Pichu was really cool, it was so gorgeous too. We had a guide tell us all about the ways the Incans lived. We got the see the crazy stone carving and building they did that has withstood numerous earthquakes and hundreds of years. It was crazy how much work went into each stone to make it fit. We also all touched the supposed healing energy stones. We also got to see a chinchilla in the wild and some llamas too.

That afternoon we hung around Aguas Calientes the small town at the base of Machu Pichu and ate a huge traditional Peruvian lunch complete with potatos soup and juice. We trained back to Cusco and we had a lovely surprise on the train with one of the scarey masked Peruvian dancers dancing in the aisles.

The next morning we flew back to Lima to spend a few more days withe the group in Lima with no agenda. We ate in China town and Candice used her Chinese skills to order for the group. Then we came back to the hotel and were very surprised to see Antoine our friend from volunteering in Chupaca waiting for us in the hotel. We had offered for him to come and meet us in Lima and he wrote back about four times saying he was coming but none of us checked our email, so it was a nice surprise! We went to the a local market looking for a Grupo Cinco CD (our favorite Peruvian music group), and found the CD but also found a DVD of the new Sex and the City movie!!! So even though you all got to see it before us, we now own a working English copy of the DVD, and it cost 3 soles, basically $1. Now we just have to wait to get to Hong Kong to have a DVD player to watch it on. We had a nice dinner in the Miraflores area (the only not dirty, not smelly area of Lima as far as we can tell), and are going back this afternoon to walk around. Tomorrow we leave the family crew and fly to LA for a night and then to Hong Kong!! South America has been amazing, but laundry, civilization, not sitting on buses, trains and planes every other day and sleeping in past 6am are all sounding pretty good by now, that may be all we do in Hong Kong!