¡Hola!

We really liked Cusco and we stayed there for three days either side of the Inca Trail in a great hostel called Sami Wasay.Our hostel was up in the San Blas district at the top of the hill and afforded great views of Cusco from the breakfast room and balcony.Despite being obviously touristy, Cusco is really pretty and a pleasant place to wander about, with great shops selling decent clothing and gear for trekking. We spent most of our time here just wandering about, shopping, writing CVs, and organising things, and we didn't do any of the 'sights' until the last day when we popped into the Pre-Colombian Art Museum.This was a small place with only a few ceramic, metal and shell objects, but it was probably the best curated museum I've been to; everything was displayed beautifully.

In not doing anything particularly touristy in Cusco, we really started to feel at home, and by the end of our time there we knew all the best local places to buy fruit and veg, like the incredible Mercado Central; and clothes, like in Topitop (Peru's answer to H&M); and where the finest coffee, cake and chocolate eateries were hidden.We met up with a few people whilst we were there, like Mojca and Gregor, who we'd met in Arequipa, and the group from the Inca Trail, who we'd gone out for a few drinks with at the obligatory Irish pub in town called, you guessed it, Paddy's.Sarah and I had generally avoided these sorts of gringo hang-outs so far on this trip, but to our surprise it was actually really nice to be back in a pub with familiar decor and draught beers and ales, bereft of any locals, where you could speak English at the bar and eat a roast dinner whilst watching the rugby.

We could have stayed in Cusco much longer, but we decided it was time to head South towards Bolivia, where we had planned to base ourselves for a bit longer.

R&M

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