We were still exhausted by Tuesday morning despite a comfy bed and a long sleep. Vee, Michelle and I went to an English greasy spoon type place for brekkie and stuffed our faces with the full works. It was then a lazy day of shopping and I went to get my nails done. The pedi was great (chocolate soak, scrub and cream including a cup of hot chocolate!) but the mani was appalling so I refused to pay for it! The therapist lady asked what my kids were doing for me for mother's day! Ha! The cheek of it! Anyway, in the evening I had arranged to meet up with Phil for dinner (you remember Phil? My fellow roadtripper in NZ). We went for guinea pig which had been woodfire oven roasted (cuy al horno). We saw it being taken raw to the kitchen and it was just a purple blob and then it appeared! Tee hee. It looked like a piece of roadkill - its face staring at us with its little buck teeth sticking out and its little clawed hands all shrivelled up! Then came the tough part - finding some meat on it. I tell you, there's a reason this delicacy hasn't made it anywhere else in the world! There's nothing on it! It tasted pretty good though - a bit like turkey. After a final drink with another friend of Phil's, I made it home for an early night but I suspect Phil stayed out and struggled to catch his 10am bus the next morning - he looked like he might be on a mission!

On Wednesday (Happy 40th Birthday Jeanette!!) we drove for around 4 hours to Raqchi. This is home to some more Inca ruins and they are apparently a pretty significant temple. We had a wander and I drank some holy water that's supposed to make you have lots of babies (yikes!) and then we met our 'mummies' for our homestay visit. I was in a home with Michelle, Vee, Lil and Diane and our mum and dad were Ambrosia and Umberto. At first they wanted Vee and I to sleep in the same bed but then they managed to acquire (from where?) another bed for me! They were very sweet and had quite a nice home with 2 guest rooms, a proper toilet (all tiled in white and everything!) but then a very basic kitchen with a woodfire over in the corner (and no running water). We went to another house first for a ceramic display and then headed back home for dinner where the 5 of us sat in one room drinking wine til we were called for dinner which was fantastic - soup and then a great chicken dish and an apple pudding. We asked them about the guinea pigs we had seen in their shed. They had around 30 and apparently they keep them for special occasions when they will eat several at once. Then came the 'fun' part. We had to dress up in the traditional dress which involved a huge fat skirt (puts on 10 sizes!), jacket, flying saucer hat and a sort of papoose thing that we were sure held several children each! (It's actually what they carry everything in - kids, shopping, laundry). The boys had to wear big ponchos and simple hats. We then went to someone else's house (thank goodness we'd had the wine!) for a pachamama ceremony. Pachamama is mother earth and fairly significant in this part of the world. We were each given 2 sets of coca leaves that we had to take to the front, blow on, pray to and then put in cups which were then buried in the garden. Then it was time for a bit of dancing and singing before managing to escape back home to bed!