Awake on time for a breakfast of granola (ish?) with juice/yogurt combo poured over it, fruit and melon and a yellow ball that was not something exotic when I bit into it. Just a ball of butter.

Outside to meet Stephanie who was late because she was not able to walk very fast because she had come down with flu. She mentioned this after we shook hands in greeting. Hmmmm. Caught my bus with Jose the tour guide from the day before. Much of the tour group was the same; the group of 8 from Boston, the talkative older guy from Michigan and two women from California. Met a group of three guys from Chicago as well. We all set off driving back up past Sexy Woman (I forget how to actually spell it, but that's what it sounds like) and on to the Sacred Valley of the Incas. Basically a very fertile valley with a river that brought lots of rich sediment to their corn fields and fed the empire. It was stunningly beautiful. Amazing verdant mountains, shrouded in mist around every turn. I spent the whole day being amazed anew at every new vista. We stopped by a small animal hospital where they had 3 condors, alpacas and macaws as thicks as barn cats. We stopped at a small town famous for its market where I was able to purchase a ripe mango, a custard apple, a sweet cucumber, two types of passionfruit and some plaintains from an elderly Quecha woman for a mere 10 Sols! I would have got a papaya too, but it turns out they're almost as big as a pumpkin. We walked around an enormous market of local vendors where I haggled succesfully for an alpaca hoodie and hat. We drove for an hour more to have lunch at a very nice place in the middle of nowhere. It was buffett style, with many of the same choices as last night and some new additions. Mostly in the desert department. Mmmmm flan. We lounged for a bit on a soft lawn in back, next to the river and flower beds. I watched and laughed as the Boston guys tried to pet 3 tethered llamas who weren't interested in getting pet. Another 40 min brought us to Ollyantaytambo, an Incan city. We walked around the residential district, where Quecha people still live and visited someone's home, where they had a herd of guinae pigs inside. We proceeded up to the religious/ceremonial areas, which was a series of terraces with stone steps. So man steps. It doesn't take long to get winded on the steps at this altitude, but it also didn't take me long to get my wind back. We made quick progress and shot all sorts of pictures, before climbing back down and getting back on the bus (which I missed while searching for ice cream. But, they tracked me down). We began heading back toward Cusco and everyone got tired and grumpy. The guide tried to add in a few more stops, but no one was very interested. I realized late that it was because we were all sunburnt. Oops.

The ride back was a bit depressing, as well, because of the absolute squalor that the poor people live in here. Roofs of courregated metal held down by rocks because it's cheaper than nails, people gathering sticks like their survival depends on the heat they will provide, subsistance farmers/herder everywhere. I thought the saddest thing was many of the concrete or cinder block structures had long metal supports sticking out of the roof, obviously intended to support another story, but the rest of the construction had never come. Even sadder when it would be right next to the concrete shell of a building where people were currently living!

When we returned, I drank some cocao leaf tea to raise my spirits (which it absolutely did) and met with David from the tourism agency about a problem with my Machu Picchu hike tomorrow. Apparently the road has been washed out to where I was supposed to begin, so I will take another route. I still get to hike into the city itself, so that's what counts. Then I walked around and watched this busy busy city. For dinner, I ate the hell out of a passionfruit and the custard apple. Yum! Now to sleep for a 530 wake up call to go hike all day. Woooo! signing off.