Forgive me amigos but yo pienso mas en espanol than ingles at this point. We arrived in Cusco yesterday morning after the plane was ridiculously late getting out of BWI, then the flight from Miami to Lima was even later and after having a discussion with Terry I urged us to check our bags so we wouldn't have to deal with them. This was a critical mistake because our bags were the last off the plane causing us to miss our flight to Cusco. Luckily, the people at the Lima aeropuerta forsee these issues and employ assistants to get lost Americans out of messes.At 5AM a wonderful hombre navigated us through the quagmire of airlines available and in a few hours we were mobile again and on our way to Cusco. The flight from Lima to Cusco was fabuloso, the mountains along the way stuck out of the clouds like craggy shards of glass, with glaciers. The mountain lakes are brightly colored in yellow and green from the minerals in the soil. The weather is aqui is most ambient, getting into the low 70s during the day and in the 60s at night.
The Peruvians are amazing people and while Terry was busy dealing with maps, innkeepers, other tourists and guidebooks once we reached our hostel I fled for the door. I hit the plaza D'Armas and saw a bunch of touristas so I headed for the sidestreets and struck up a conversation with a tiny peruvian mujer and her bambino. She didn't really speak espanol and neither did I but because I was making an effort to converse she offered me a popsical. What a gal!
I have a beautiful picture of this church at night but it is too large to upload. Anyhoo, Terry and I passed this church on the plaza last night, I went in to watch the church service. It was time for the wafer distribution so I figured I would participate so I could get a better look at the massive gold chatzkes up on the wall behind the priest. So I put my hand out for the wafer but didn't eat it immediately. The Peruvian priest admonished me in front of the entire congregation. Obviously I broke some sort of church rule. Mind you this is some iglesia, the local muchachas huff solvent on the front steps. Speaking of drugs I have discovered a new one, chocolat con leche. These folks make the very best hot chocolate in the world. Then there is the food.... I had a 4 course lunch at a nice restaurant today that cost a little over $1. I didn't really know what I was eating but it certainly was delicioso.
Terry has turned out to be a wonderful trouper. When I suggested we do some light hiking he was immediately apprehensive. I pointed to a little mountain that had Jesus at the top and he nearly choked. I told him that he underestimated himself and then secretly regretted that I left my electric cattle prod at home. Terry lit a prehike cigarette and then we filled our bladders and went for broke. With no specific plan we hit the mountain and did 5 reasonable difficult miles with a 1200 foot elevation change. BTW, we started our hike at 11,000 feet, I took a picture of my GPS readout but it didn't come out so you can see the altitude. We walked through the bario and met all sorts of personnas.Tomorrow we are going to leave Cusco and bus it to some other place that has a long name that I can't remember. Then we will push on toward Machu. Other tourists are giving us a lot of great information and being very helpful, they are from all over the world and are very very polite. The best part of this trip es dos semanas yo no vis no gringas monos gordos con SUVs grande. Life is muy bueno.
Also, special thanks to Edgar Huerta who spent an entire year drilling espanol into my head, it is paying off in spades.
