We had an appreciated day of R&R. I guess we are not 20 anymore. Our legs were very tired from that past two days, so we did lots of walking - just no steps. Even stepping on and off a curb seemed like work. We did get in about 4 hours of walking around Cusco. Well actually 3 walking and about an hour off for beer at a restaurant overlooking a park. Cusco is a surprisingly vibrant and active city. The downtown area has lots of shops and restaurants. We will probably take the Hop On Hop Off bus tomorrow while we wait for our ride to the airport in the afternoon. Right now we are resting in the room before heading out to dinner.

While I have some time, here are some general comments on our trip so far:

Peru

It's hard to explain, but Peru is the cleanest dirty place I have seen. There is dirt everywhere: roads, sidewalks, buildings etc. But the Peruvians are always trying to keep it clean. We saw two women sweeping a road that was half dirt and cobblestone. There is no trash to be seen anywhere and trash cans never overflow. Food has been fresh tasty and cheap. The people have been friendly and helpful and seem to be quite happy. People dealing with the public are neatly dressed in pressed uniforms. All in all, Peru has been a pleasant experience.

The travel companies

We went thru a company called Journeyou for the Peru portion of out trip. They used a subcontractor called Condor Travel for the Sacred Valley and Machu Picchu portions of the trip. The cost was less than half the cost for the Princess pre cruise trip to Machu Picchu. And the Princess package did not include air fare from the US which was included in ours. For this we got personal service with all transfers just being us (no groups). We had 3 included tours. One was just us and the other two were just groups of six. This is compared to the groups of 20 or more with cruise ship tours. We have been very pleased with the hotels. I would highly recommend these two companies.

DirecTV

DirecTV has been a lifesaver. Understandably, television in English has been very limited. Fortunately, DirecTV lets us stream over WiFi almost all their channels to our PC, phone or tablet. We have been able to watch news, sports (Pats highlights) and other shows. We cannot get the broadcast channels. They only provide this capability from the US, but I use a VPN (virtual private network) that allows me to make our devices look like they are in the US (or any other country), The VPN also provides an additional level of security while on public networks. Well worth the $25 for 6 months investment.