Here is the update on the rest of my last trip in Peru. Actually, this is my last update for my trip in general. Wow! How the time has flown by! The last couple of days that we had in Cusco were spent touring the city. The day after our Machupicchu trip, we got to finally sleep in for a while. Then around 2:00 we went on an afternoon city tour. We visited the main cathedral, the sun temple, and a few other Inca temples near the city. We also attended a pena to watch the local dancing with some of the people from our tour. That evening we decided to treat ourselves to a nice meal and then go out for a few drinks. A proposed early night quickly turned into an evening hanging out with some Irish people and then dancing at a local disco. It was great fun! Our last day in Cusco was spent mostly sleeping in bed. We did make it out for a few hours to shop in the markets and we had dinner with a Dutch girl that we had met a few days prior. We had a very long day of traveling the following morning starting at 7 am. Our bus ride was long, but we made plenty of stops to break up the trip. The scenery was gorgeous! Our first stop was in Andahuaylillas to visit a beautiful old colonial church built on Inca grounds. Then we stopped to see the oldest Inca temple in Peru, called Raqchi. They provided us with a local lunch buffet in one town and then we also made a quick stop at La Raya, the highest point on our journey and one of the prettiest. Finally, our last stop was at museum in Pukara to see some of the ruins that dated back to pre-Inca times. Puno reminded us so much of Lima, except it had sun. We checked in to our hotel and then went out for dinner. You will not believe it but Laura and I ate Cuy!! In case you don't know what that it is, it is a cooked guinea pig. We were a bit frightened when it came out with the head and teeth, but it sure was tasty. The following day we went on a boat ride on the highest navigable lake in the world (sits at 3,838 meters). Wow! It was beautiful. We first stopped at the Isles de Flotas, which had been there for hundreds of years. The natives that live on these islands had made them entirely out of reeds. It was really interesting to learn how the floating islands were made and how the people lived on them. They literally ate the reeds, made houses out of them, made boats out of them, beds out of them, and the ground they walked on out of them. Apparently, there is close to 2,500 people living like this on the lake and they have schools, churches, stores, and even hostels on the islands. A few of us in the group went on a very relaxing reed boat ride also. Then we cruised out to the Isla Taquile. This island is famous for the Inca civilizations that still live there today in their traditional form. The 2,000 people that live there speak Quechua and dress in traditional clothes. We took a nice walk around the island to reach the main plaza. Laura and I tried to quickly run up a hill to take a photo of the famous stone arch that was at the top of the island, because we didn't want to be late to lunch. However, we never made it because we took a wrong turn and also were dying of breath from running in high altitude. We later found another arch that satisfied our craving to get a photo. We had a lovely buffet lunch at one of the local restaurants and talked with the people on our tour. One of the most interesting people that we met on our trip was a guy from Germany who was traveling with his father around the world for 8 months. We shared some great conversation with the two of them. The next day we spent the morning walking around the city of Puno exploring the markets and other areas. Unfortunately, we had to find a place to change our flights back to Lima from Arequipa because I made a dumb blonde mistake and mixed up my dates for when I was suppose to fly back to the States. In the afternoon, we took another long bus ride to Arequipa. So, nothing exciting really happened on our day of travel. We began early once again to go on a two day tour of Colca Cañon outside of Arequipa. Luckily our group was small, only 14 people. The first day included a lot of driving out to the canon area. Arequipa is a beautiful city bordered by some beautiful mountains and an active volcano. As we drove through this mountainous area, we saw tons of alpacas and some vicuñas. The fur of Vicuñas, we were told, sells for $200 a kilo. We stopped for some Coca tea, which helps with the altitude. After a long morning of driving, we finally arrived in the town of Chivoy. Most of the group hiked out to the thermal springs for the afternoon. I wasn't feeling well, so I just walked around the town and then took a long nap. We all went out for a great dinner that evening and then went to a club to play pool and dance for a while. We met early the next morning to go out to the famous canon. We stopped in a small mount town to see the church and some of the locals were dancing. We also made some more stops along the way to witness the great views. We arrived at the viewing area at the canon and were blown away by its beauty. Laura, an Italian couple, a Spanish guy, and me walked around together for a hour or so. We saw some beautiful condors flying over the canon. The condor bird is worshiped by the Incas as a representative of the heavens. Later, our entire group took a nice leisurely walk along the side of the canon. The rest of the day was spent getting back to Arequipa. The drive was long, but worth it because of the beautiful views of the mountains. That pretty much sums it up! We had a wonderful trip around Peru. It was a great ending to a long six months of traveling. I am back at my host family's house today. It is going to be sad to say goodbye, but I feel that I am ready to go home.