Now the 1st thing i asked about the hotel was ,was it on a hill the cheeky beggars lied and said no it wasnt!! and to top it off they put us on the 2nd bloody floor as well!! The up shot is that the new jeans i bought before leaving hone i can now take off without undoing and can no longer wear without bearing my bum in public until i purchase a belt!

I might not have been impressed with the room but for once Cusco was everything i expected it to be which made a happy change. Laid back,cobbled streets and beautiful architecture all set off with magnificient snow capped mountains beyond.

As we were late getting in the 1st night we just had an amble into the main square for something to eat, got lost which doent make for a change but finally found it and wow it was beautiful. Only slightly mared by the level of hassle we repeatedly got from street vendors in the end we were nearly forced to buy a T shirt with "No Gracias" on cos we were sick of saying it!!

Found a lovelty ltlle pizza place (under paddys bar- had to be an irish bar didnt there!) scoffed a pizza and a couple of Inka Kola and rolled (up hill) to bed.

The next morning we got up late and missed breaky but headed out in search of a bargain tour of the scared valley.The walking around for several hours only saved us 5 soles in the end but at least we saw some of the city and we had our tour booked for the next day.

To be continued....

Right i´m back and i am literally going tp have to sit here until we catch ùp as we are now almost 2 weeks behind with this, so apologise if this isnt up to the normal level of detail but may have to rush through some to spend time in other places.

So we took our tour of teh scared valley and i actually think its the best thing we have donwe in south america so far.

We started off at the usual tourist market in pisac, any oppurtunity to get you to buy stuff, which was actually very good (and stupìdly cheap i got a fossil for a fiver - which im having to lug everywhere which is a bit of a pain in the ass but its cool)

Next up was Pusac the sun temple, as you drive into the valley over this big mountain you can see why they call it the sacred valley there is just this massive wide bottomed swath of green, as the river winds its way down to lake titicaca. As you make your way around the valley walls climbing higher and higher you start to see ridges on the opposite side of the valley its ony when you get opposite them you realise they are massive banks of Inca terraces it really is quite awe inspiring.

I didnt realise in my wisdom that the tour would involve any degree of walking so had worn flip flops (was expecting bus to ruin off bus walk round a bit and back on bus) what i actually got was a 3 hr trek on paths that were less than 50cm wide at 30 degrees with a sheer 1000m drop at the side. At some points i was so scared i was crying (didnt tell Steve that at the time) i have never been as happy as when i got back off that mountain, it wasnt the up that got me it was the down, one false slip off those stairs and you were dead. The view at the top though and th ruins once you got there were amazing and i´m glad i did it but never again!!

Next we had lunch which was the usual tourist buffet rubbish which was a complete rip off for 25 soles each and back on teh bus to another site Orambumba. I cant say much about this site as i took one look at the climb up the mountain again (plus it started to rqain and i didnt have a coat) and elected to stay on the bus with another english woman who didnt fanbcy it either and we had a nice tour of the village whislt the others went on another 2hr trek. Half of me wishes i´d just done it the other half is just happy to be alive!

The 3rd stop was a village that used to be a site of another incan site but it had been demolished by the spaniards (not sure why we went here other than to have a wool making exhibition of some old woman in spanish so we didnt understand anyway) but as we drove out of the valley we were level with the top of the snow capped mountains, the highest plains in the world so they said. I´m running out of words for wow!?

We had some random bloke get on the bus and start singing and playing instruments, i dont think he was reckoning on Steve taking over his show and out playing him on the drums.... the big show off!

As we were walking back from the square we bumped into Bevan and Nicole from Copa (they screamed at us from the balcony of some pub as we walked past) so we gladly went and had a few drinks and decided to go for dinner. We left them in the pub and nipped back to athe hotel to get some warm clothes on and some shoes. Literally we got in and the heavens opened it was literally heaving it down. I was ok i had boots and a coat but Steve was and is still minus a rain coats after he lost his on the bus. So we attempted to get back to the main square but Steve was getting soaked, he tool refuge in a doorway and i attempted to find a brolly or a mac for him fro the local shops. Please picture me dripping wet stood in front of a shop full of locals trying to mine umbrella?! Finally managed to get my hands on a rain poncho after a woman understood "rain no" and we made it back to the pub if somewhat slightly damp.

We had been muttering about ginea pig for a while, so we all decided to go in search of said animal for dinner. This french bloke in Bevans hostel thought he knew where we could get it but after truddging around for 15 mins found out they had run out, but stumbled on another place on the square. We all ordered the little critter bar Nicole who wimped out and waited. I was hoping it would come out like a partridge, whole with legs (had visions of the little bodies turning on a spit) no such luck, we got quarters, must have been at least 2 on the plate in bits. Damn tasty, very rich but damn fiddly, too many little bones.

The next two days are a bit of a blur as we were just kicking our heels until Fridays trip to Machu Picu, we watched fotty in Paddys one Pm and spent anbother morning trying to book a flight to Lima and change our flight to BA (cost me 100 dollars to change the flight right rip off)

Friday morning we had booked the train to MP, so we duly got up at 4.,30am (no hot water so didnt get a shower which set a bad mood for the rest of the day - not a monring person)

Got a cab and landed at the staition at 5.55. Its shut, theres no one around, its dark, sh#t what have we done, we scream tourists, mug me!

Luckily enough people start appearing and milling around in the market opposite and gradually train staff start arriving and within 10 minutes the train station is open and were ok and inside.

We´d booked the posh train on the way to MP the vistadome, which basically means its a posher than normal train car with rooflights (i thought it would have a bubble on top like the popes car, little disappointed) and you get breakfast (bread, jam , cheese and a muffin) The ride up was lovely, slightly marred by teh kids trying top break the windows with very very big rocks!

The train doesnt take you all the way to mp you get off at Allieas callientes, have to fight your way out of the market to the buses on the street (its then another 28 usd) who take you to MP entrance. I dont know what i expected but i didnt think that you had to climb a mountain to get to MP, its strange but i knew there were two mountains either side, but i just presumed MP was at the bottom. Nope .,.no no MP is at the crest almost of the two mountains and you have to climb for 30mins on a bus to get to the bottom gate (Mom if you didnt like dads driving in NZ you wouldnt have stayed on this bus, my god, i shut my eyes and didnt open thm till we were down). Once there you have to again, get more tickets to get in and we picked up a lady guide for the bargain price of 35usd for 2hr tour.

I´ll let Steve effervese about MP in a seperate blog, it was amazing though.

After the tour we were bushed its hard work steps at altitude, so we popped out of the gates and got a drink and a sandwich (it had celary in so both of us spent 10 minutes picking it out and feeding it to a mangy flea ridredn dog)

We went back in for about another hour but i didnt want to do a big climb, so we called it a day and went back into allias for a walk around. We did some window shopping in the market and got another drink but as we couldnt get back on an earlier train, we amused ourselves for over an hour in fact, making pigeons run for biscuit crumbs... i know the littlest things.

By the time we got back to Cusco it was gone nine, so we grabbed something to eat and hit the sack.