Will's arrival & Cusco

Will arrived on Wednesday night, so it has been lovely catching up with him. His flight was over an hour late, & considering his body clock thought it was 5am when he arrived, he was pretty tired! We spent Thursday wandering around the Miraflores area of Lima. We went to the markets & chose 2 wall hangings for our new place, & had to show considerable restraint not to get more! We also went back to the "Park of Love" & took silly self-portraits. You can see in the pic below just how foggy & grey Lima is during the winter, it really is quite depressing.

On Friday we were up fairly early for our flight to Cusco. Cusco is fantastic, a very very cool place. Best of all the air was nice & clear after Lima, & we even had some sunshine! We have to readjust to the altitude again though. Cusco is over 3300m above sea-level, & the time spent in Lima at sea-level has undone all the acclimatising my body did in Quito. We took it very easy yesterday, just wandered into the Plaza de Arms which is the heart of the city.

We also wandered a few of the narrow side streets leading off from the Plaza. We found lots of little markets to explore, & I must confess, we did buy matching 'his n hers' Peruvian hats... They were so cute with the little Llamas on them that we couldn't resist!We were pretty shattered by early evening, so went back to the hostel for a siesta. Neither of us had much inclination to go out for dinner, so Will, bless him, went out & bought a take-away pizza & a couple of beers when we then consumed in bed! It was very decadent, but that's what being on holiday is about...

Today we are going to do a few of the sights, while still trying to take things fairly easy. Tomorrow we might do a half-day trip out to the 4 Inca sights in close proximity to Cusco. Then Monday we are off on our 4-day trek! I am very excited about visiting Machu Picchu!!!