Cusco has to be one of the nicest places we've visited yet! Spent a day there before, and a couple after the inca trail... It was the seat of Inca royalty and you can still see orginal inca walls used as the bases of buildings! You have to be prepared to see lots and lots of ruins in Peru, spent one afternoon getting a taxi out of town then walking back into cusco taking in four inca sights along the way, Tambo Machay where water was first taken from the mountains to be fed down to town, Puka Pukara, which was apparently a practice for Machu Picchu, Q'enco was a sacrifical altar for llamas and stuff where they would go on the soltices, and Saqsayhuaman (sexywoman !!) which was like a big temple overlooking cusco with some MASSIVE rocks that its amazing how they got them there! went out for dinner that night and mark finally got to try Guinea pig (Cuy) which is apparently a south american delicacy, altho I thought it was rank!! haha! Mark ate it, but it was really fiddly, fatty and not much meat... He ended up finishing two other people's dinners jus to be full!!

Went to Ollantaytambo the next day which is where you start the inca trail from, Mark did some more ruins, which were apparently pretty impressive, but I met Lucy there, which is so weird to meet someone from home halfway across the world! Had a meal in a nice cafe run by an english woman who is giving all profits to local communities and projects.

After the inca trail back in Cusco (i'll write a separate entry for the trail!) I had a famous English Breakfast, the Gordo (for Dinner!) at a famous place called Jacks cafe which was really good... The next day met Lucy again in Cusco with Chino and had a nice day just walking around teh town and going to the market, whcih has so much bootleg stuff! Went out that nite and get a little bit (!!) drunk with a few people in the group, Hannah and Amy taking me home (Mark decided to stay longer and leave me to them!!) Was still drunk in the morning when we had to get on a 8hr bus to Puno...

At least i provided some comedy entertainment for the group!! haha!

Lara xxxxx