Cusco Peru!!

Hello everybody! We have arrived in Cusco , Peru. Our hostel is really nice, its more like a home than a hostel its very quiet, because of the previous floods in the city but wev met some really nice people here. Its run by a Canadian guy and his family, he has a little boy and girl and his wife is peruvian, they also have a new puppy whos really cute. Wev met a few Canadians and Auzzies here and just today 3 kiwi girls arrived so Mark was talking to them about his NZ heritage!

We first arrived in Cusco and realised Machu Piachhu didnt look good. The trail and railway line is closed due to terrible flooding about 2 weeks ago, lots of people on the trail were stranded and part of the railway line was washed out so the whole area has been closed down for about 7 weeks until repairs are completed. The city is losing a lot of money due to lack of tourism so its still a good thing we came. Theres still lots of exciting things to see in and around the city.

We arrived in the middle of carnival and the tradition here is to throw water balloons and foam. The whole plaza in the centre of the city was packed with chioldren and grown adults creating a massive water fight, of course everytime we stepped out of the hostel we were bombarded, apparently tourists are prime targets. So we headed back to the hostel to get our own back. The manager had about 700 water balloons, Mark joined the staff pn the safety of the hostel balcony and started throwing the balloons at people in the street. It was all in the carnival spirit!

On Valentines day we decided to go for a nice meal. We headed to a little restaurant just looking over the plaza with a guy playing saxaphone inside. It was really nice and quiet and we tried Alpaca meat which is just like beef really, its a local dish. I also recieved 12 red roses and white lillies! We had a really good day just looking around the city and enjoying the carnival, although I did get foam all over me just as we were walking to the restaurant! It was ok though it didnt spoil the night.

Because we couldnt get to Machu Pichhu we decided to explore the sacred valley. The photos we got are amazing and the ruins we saw were fantastic. We explored the ruins of Pisaq, Chinchero and Ollantaytambo. All were beautiful as you can see from the photos. In Chinchero we enjoyed a presentation from the local women about how they make jumpers and blanckets out of sheep and Alpaca wool, they taught us how to use different leaves and plants to dye the wool different colours. It was really fascinating. All the ruins were breathtaking and almost made up for us not being able to visit Machu Pichhu, Im sure we will see it one day we have just been unlucky at our time of visit! The floods were pretty bad you can see how bad they are when you drive into the city.

So far Peru has been great Cusco is a really beautiful city just by itself without being surrounded by Inca ruins! We are heading to Lima tonight on a 21 hour coach journey!!