Cusco

The night before, C, D and I decided that we would tour around the ruins outside Cusco together, but we would sleep in first! We ordered our first cab using the hotel, and it only cost us S/. 10 (about $4) to drive 20 minutes up to Sacsayhuaman, a temple to the sun. The view of the city from there was amazing, and the ruins were interesting to walk around, but we not interesting enough to keep us there for more than half an hour. During Inca times, Cusco was built in the shape of a puma and Sacsayhuaman was the head. The zig-zaging walls were the teeth of the puma (according to C's German guidebook). Most of the rocks were removed by the Spanish when they were building Cusco, so it isn't as impressive as it once was.

We left the park and wandered around the parking lot trying to find a cab to drive us to the next site. A cab stopped along the road and it looked like the couple inside were getting out, but instead, we joined them in the cab up the road to Tambomachay for S/.15 (the other passengers continued on). The driver tried to raise it to S/. 15 / person as we were getting out, but we could tell by the smirk on his face that he was just trying to rip us off.

Tambomachay was an Inca "resort". According to legend, if you drink the water flowing out of the fountain, you'll have eternal health and beauty. We decided that you're more likely to get nausea and diarrhea from it. A few people from another tourist group were actually giving it a try ... I wonder how they felt for the next few days.

We crossed the road and walked 200 m to the next ruin, Puca Pucara. It was a storehouse, but there wasn't much left of it compared to some of the other ruins we had seen. We knew we wouldn't be able to catch a cab there, so walked back to Tambomachay. All the cabs sitting there were waiting for their fares to view the site, so we stood along the road waiting for a cab to show up. One came pretty quickly, and we all squeezed in (there were already 2 people in there). This cab took us down to the city, but wasn't able to take us back to the main plaza. He was nice though, and had called another cab to pick us up where he was dropping us off.

C and I went into the main cathedral to look at the amazing collection of paintings while D went back to the hotel to get something. We met back together in the plaza, then they went to look at a market while I went in the opposite direction to see a few museums. The museums weren't the greatest - not much on display and no English, of course - so it didn't take me long to get bored of them. I walked around a few of the streets and then, since it was looking like it was going to rain, I headed back to the hotel to relax and watch some TV.

That night we went out to a really cool restaurant, "The Fallen Angel". Its three rooms are decorated as heaven, hell, and in between. We ate in the "in between" area and our table was a bathtub filled with water and plants with a glass table top over it. Very cool! After dinner, we were shown the guest rooms upstairs - six fancy rooms (each with a theme) that cost a couple hundred dollars per night.