6-10th November 2005 Well, we've now spent 4 days in Cuzco. We're probably as used to the altitude as we can be. We seem fine but things are a bit harder than at sea level, apart from getting drunk, which is easier. Cuzco is very pretty - lots of amazing churches with ornate decoration and lots of interesting paintings. The buildings are nice and colourful and the town is clean and well kept, although gets much more shabby as you move away from the main square. There is however, one extremely annoying thing about Cuzco - it is impossible to walk 10 yards or sit down for more than 30 seconds (we have been timing it with a stop watch) without someone trying to sell you some tat or someone trying to get you into their bar/restaurant. At one point there were 5 people trying to shoo us into their bars and I think my feet actually left the ground as I was swept along. No, I don't want any of your postcards/paintings/finger puppet lamas/Peruvian dolls/10p plastic poncho rain coasts/pan pipes/CDs of pan pipes/scarves/gloves/lama socks/ponchos/sunglasses etc. I know they are only trying to make a living but after 4 days solid of it, its getting very annoying. The most touristy sight seeing we've done is a ride on a bus in the shape of a wooden tram which goes along the route that the old tram used to run along. We did this for the novelty value of going on a pretend tram although we did actually see some things that we wouldn't have otherwise, like the statue of Jesus on the hill side overlooking Cuzco which is very freaky close up. Other than sight seeing, I have been spending my time reading and learning Spanish - I've actually had 6 hours of lessons which I hope will make enough of a difference. We have been to some really good restaurants and all the food has been excellent and interesting. The most random was the vegetarian Japanese place, and the best was the Blueberry lounge which was very expensive coming in at 7 pounds each, but well worth it. It is a really cool bar as well as restaurant and rivals anything in London. Simon had Lama but I wasn't quite so adventurous and had some beef thing in a delicious sauce - can't tell you what was in it as I couldn't translate the words. We also went to a good bar overlooking the main square where they serve an excellent range of cocktails. We asked some people to take a picture of us with our matching Machu Picchu stripy cocktails and matching watches (yes, coincidentally we chose identical 12 pound watches from Argos). They didn't seem to find it quite as hilarious as we did. I was also having trouble stopping laughing after Simon told me he has trouble saying the word Gareth. The next morning Simon was concerned that he had caught rabies as the cute kitten at my Spanish school bit him. He had some of the symptoms such as aversion to bright light and headache. Turns out it was a hang over from drinking too many Machu Picchus. Last night we went to the cinema to watch Crash which was excellent - the cinema and the film. The cinema holds about 25 people and everyone has a table and they serve food and drinks and it costs 50p. We're off on the 4 day trek to Machu Picchu tomorrow starting at 6am - aggghh. So its over and out until next week. Josiexxx