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Date: 28th and 29th October 2006:
Mel &Matt: We were up early this morning and left the little town of Chivay at 6:30 to head on our way to the city of Cusco which was the Capital of the Incan Empire in their time. We stopped at the same local restaurant place for coffee on the way out of the Colca Canyon reserve and all posed in front of Doris for a group picture taken by our driver!! It was only a short stop here before we continued our Journey onto Cusco. At about 1ish we pulled over at a really scenic lake area for our lunch which was a nice break. Again we had some locals sat near us watching us eat, so after we had all finished we gave them our leftovers, along with loaves of bread that we wouldn't be needing over the 9 days we were in Cusco for. These locals were really grateful with this food and left us with big smiles this is really nice to see feels like you've helped them out. After our short lunch break we continued our journey which was quite a long afternoons drive there, through very scenic mountainous and green areas with little villages and houses few and far between, must be so lonely living so far away from people and not having any transport like them. Alot of the little poor looking houses on the way to Cusco had paintings of Incan heads on the outside of them this shows how much they thought of this empire that its still with them now. We even passed by the famous Incan gate which was the main gateway into Cusco during Incan times this was cool to see that it was still standing.
We arrived in Cusco at about 5.00 but we had to get off Doris outside the main city centre and get onto two smaller buses as our truck wouldn¢¥t fit down the roads in the main city centre of Cusco as alot of them are fairly small with tight corners. We had to get all our bags and sleeping bags off and everything we needed as we wern't seeing Doris for 9 days as she was kept in a truck park for this time. As we were getting all of our stuff and taking it over to the smaller buses there were little kids hanging around us. Steve the driver warned us all to be careful as the kids werent hanging around to be nice they were trying to rob us and their parents were on the wall watching them probably set them up to try and steal from us, so we kept a very close eye on all our stuff and tried to be quick when moving our stuff over to the other buses. When we all got on the seperate buses it took a further ten minute drive to get us to our hostel within the city centre which was called Hostel Saphi and was really nice for a hostel and was very close to the Plaza de Armas which was cool. We all got given our rooms had showers and got taken around the main plaza with Mike as our walking tour of the area. Cusco was a very nice and historical town and the Plaza de Armas was very impressive with its two cathedrals and some Incan artifacts that still remained. There was a long Incan wall that still existed, and had one block which was famous for its 12 sides resembling the 12 fronts of the incan kingdom. We got shown through the Plaza and up past the main points of interest like the museums, bars and banks etc and Mike told us some really interesting facts during this about the Incan empire. The first Incan King Mano Copac founded Cusco in the 12th century and he apparently plunged a golden rod into the ground until it disappeared and prclaimed Cusco as the 'Navel of the World'. There were 7 incan kings after him during the 12th and 14th centuries and the empire didn't really expand until Pachacuti became 9th king during the 14th century and started conquering and defeating the nearby tribes to take over. The Inca's were finally defeated by the Spanish in 1532 and by only 179 Spanish men lead by Francisco Pizaro. It was easy for him due to a number of things, the most important was that the Inca's had just had a huge civial war, the Inca King just before this was the younger of 2 brothers both sons of the previous king. The younger has proved himself to be the better but the older was very jealous and caused a revolt in the north of the Kingdom leading an army down to face his brother. The old brother won the battle killing the brother and becoming king, but this left the empire serverly weakened, also the Spanish used horses which scared the Incas as they had never seen them before and finally the Spanish of course had gun powder.
After the walking tour we were given a few hours to get ready for our big night out, the fancy dress night that we had all been really looking forward to. Me and Matt were going as Wilma and Fred with our good friends Debbs and Felix as Betty and Barney. The four of us got ready together, me and Debbs went to buy leg warmers for our outfits and vodka to drink in our rooms while Matt and Felix went to get us take away food. We ate and drank as we got ready, was quite fun doing our crazy fringe hairstyles and getting our ready made costumes that were done in Lima hehe. We were all ready and met downstairs in the hotel foyer at 10 to get photos and meet before heading to the Fallen Angel nightclub where the party was at. Everyone looked really good and had made such an effort with their outfits, especially Russ in his Clint Eastwood outfit with his alpaca poncho! It was such a great night and we all had such a laugh, the club was packed full of lots of oher people who had also dressed up. There was an outside dance area which was pretty cool with a stage that the Irish lads dressed as fame made use of using haha. We mainly stayed in this back room all together havnig a good laugh. The drinks like most other bars in south America were ver strong, most of us were on vodka and oranges and were hammered after about 4 or 5 hahaha so made it a fairly cheap night! Most people continued the night onto another club including us three, I sawped shoes with Aus Deb as her feet were hurting in her very high heels so I gave her my flip flops and I attempted to walk about in her heels absolute nightmare, I must have looked such a fool havent worn heels in a few months and these were like stilts haha. Didn't stay too long in the next place as was very drunk oops so ended up strolling back with Matt at half 3ish but it was such a brilliant night and got some great photos to prove it!
The next day we were feeling very rough and had a bit of a lie in to recover from the mad night out. Me and Matt then headed to the Real McCoys restaurant at about 12ish to get vanila milkshakes and roast dinners to help us to recover. It was really nice but we both struggled to eat as were feeling really rough but the roasts were so big we did make a hole in them although it didnt show, they was really good though. We took a walk around Cusco's main plaza and looked in some shops and local markets, and then went to use the internet and phone home. I wasnt feeling to great had a dodgy stomach so couldnt stay talking to me parents too long eek.
Headed back to the hostel at 6 for our meeting about the Inca trail that we had coming up the next day, our guide throughout the trail Santiago talked us through all the information and what to bring, as we could only have 5kg in our dufle bags we were given for the porters to carry. After the meeting me, Matt and Russ went for a walk down the street brought some warm alpaca socks and some better trousers from the markets for the Inca trail, popped to McCoys again for a little snack where we saw some of the others befoe heading back to the hotel to get our duffle bags filled up for the inca trail this took some time, as we had to keep getting it weughed to make sure it was 5kg and no more. I got an extra 2kg as my bag had metal supports hehe, after we fnally had everything packed we got an early night to get realy for the next 5 days ahead!
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