Hey all, I am now in Cusco, and have fallen in love with the city. There have been loads of celebrations going on as there is a festival of the sun going on. The square has been packed all day with music, dancing and marching and the atmosphere has been great. This is just preliminary celebrations apparently as the proper festival is when we get back from the inca trail. So.... since I last wrote we moved on to a place called Chivay. The journey to get there involved going over a mountain pass which was 4900m. At the top there were hundreds of kaerns which people build for goodluck and if you knock over someone elses then you get all their bad luck apparently. Wasn't too bad with the altitude, but didn't stay there for long..... and definately didn't have to walk any long distance so I think the Inca trail could be a little more taxing. The next day my madness kicked in again and I was up at 4.00am to go to some thermal baths. As we are up higher the temperature outside has dropped loads so we were all rapped up in scarfs, hats and gloves to get to the baths which was a 3km walk outside of town! Getting undressed was freezing to say the least, but once in the baths it was beautiful. We just sat pretty much in silence (all a bit sleepy to say much) watching the sun slowly rise up behind the mountains. It was definately a bit too cold to be alternating hot and cold baths, so stayed in the warm bath - I'm sure it will be our only chance to get a bath on the whole trip! Then we were due to leave to the Colca Canyon at 6.30am to get there in time to watch the condors flying about. They are the most amazing looking birds in the sky - so huge yet graceful at the same time despite being the heaviest bird which can fly in the world. The canyon was beautiful and despite the early start it was definately worth it. From there we went to a town called Raqchi where we stayed with families for one night. It was a great experience and our 'foster parents' for the night were amazing to us. When we arrived we dressed up in their traditional outfits and then enjoyed an evening of their traditional music and dancing after we had given offerings to "Pachamama". We were all given three coca leaves and we had to blow on them three times before putting them in to a cup. The cup was then blown on my everyone in the circle and then it was burried and the music could begin. Food was wonderful but we had vast quantities of carbs with huge three course meals that it felt like we should never need to eat again. Even breakfast was rice with chips and a fried egg followed by bread and cheese... and then we followed it with maize. Now back in Cusco we are preparing for what lies ahead with the inca trail and 4 nights camping on route before visiting Machu Picchu. Will update in a week or so hopefully. Until then..... xxx