29-12-06 Ruins Tour Today, me and a guy called Si decided that rather than staying in the hostel we would go and see the inca ruins just outside the centre of cusco. If we took a taxi up to the furthest, we could then walk back. It was only 8km or something, plus it was mostly downhill, so it would be fine. Plus it got us out of the pit which is more commonly known as the hostel! So we went first to a place called Tambomachay, which in inca times was a holiday "resort" for the rich. By now it didnt consist of very much, as supposedly the spanish when they came decided to steal all the gold that was hidden in the rocks, so destroyed most of it. When we were there though, there were these fountains, 3 of them, which again, supposedly mean that if you cleanse yourself in one of them, you will have a boy when you have children, the other a girl, and the funniest, if you cleanse yourself in the other one, you will have gays!! which i found kind of funny....silly incas. Anyway, from there we went to a place called Pukapukara, which in Catellano means the red soldiers or something. It was the place where they sent the young locals to train for the army. there wasnt really much there to see really, but the scenery was amazing. bearing in mind we were at 3700m at this point, you could see loads of mountains in the background. so we had now got to head back down into Cusco, as the other place was about 1k out of the centre. it was called Saqsaywaman, or "sexy Woman" which was strange really as it was a statue of a guy, who looked very like chirst with a beard, but hey, again, maybe in inca times the woman had facial hair!?!? who knows. but it was good to get out. The Hostel i'm staying in is a pretty crazy hostel, as im sure i have already mentioned, so it can be hard somedays to get outside it. But today was good, as the culturaql experience was something i had been lacking since i got here from Lima, apart from Machu Pichu of course!! With my blogs, i have decided to start doing them as and when something interesting happens, as its not always easy to write, and try and make interesting, everyday. So i think next time i write this, it will be New Year, and i will probably be hung over. .......... Ok so i decided to write a little more, as today the "group" that seems to have been here since i have has aquired another candidate, an irsh guy called Kieran, and it was his birthday, so we all went out into Cusco for it. Firstly we had some drinks here at the hostel, played some drinking games, including: Racehorse, on the bus, s***head (sorry mum), and some others. one of the including a game called fruit. Basically I met 3 slovenian girls who introduced me to this game. You all sit in a circle and choose a fruit. i chose Apple, and the basics are, you have to say your fruit twice, then another one, i.e Apple apple, papaya papaya. thing is, you have to say it without showing your teeth, which is suprisingly hard. If you show your teeth you have to drink, and i was done over as supposedly apple is the easiest fruit to say, so i was getting picked on a lot, so consumed the most alcohol. But its ok, as i keep getting told, as im british, i can drink till the cows come home...............supposedly! anyway, we ended up going out to a few places, but enough of that, the pictures show it all really!