Pablo's Adventure Travels: Tour Day, Party Night

So I think I´ve acclimated to the altitude with a little caution and without too much ado. I bought some altidue adjustment pills here at a pharmacia for $5. Between that and the coca leaves I think I´ve adjusted as well as can be expected. I don´t have any symtoms of altitude sickness, aside from shortness of breath.

Today I took a tour of the city ruins. Slightly over rated IMO. Below is a foto of the monastery we visted. Interesting to note that the conquistadors built a cathedral only 4 months in 1500 something after copnquering the inca. They built it so fast by using existing Inca block walls to support the monestary. All was good until 1950 when a major earthquake struck and the spainish parts collapsed and the incan construction didn´t. They credit the incan seismic resistant construction to trapazoidal architechure. Here´s a foto of the remnants...

Ya, it was a little unremarkable, but still interesting.

You really have to use your imagination to try and get a picture of what these ruins once were. The Spainish Conquistadores either demolished everything or looted them to build their own houses. The others we visited are here...

After that we toured the incan water distrubution center called sacasaywaman (pronouced something like "sexy woman")

and a few other unremarkable incan ruins...

I´ve made friends with Carlos, Luigi and Angel who leads white water rapid tours in the high season, and sells tourist packages in the low season. He made a couple bucks booking my package to Machu Picchu. Carlos is the manager of the Flying Dog Hostel here in Cusco, and Luigi works there. I know I said I wanted Anarchy and spur of the moment decisions, but I´ve succummebd to the familiariality of security and put my trust in Angel. Hey, You have to trust somebody sometime right? As a bonus we hit a few of the local haunts including Burn, the local discoteca that´s hot this season.

From left to right, Me, Luigi, Angel and Carlos at the "before-party"

So this rapidly degenerated into a "party night." Ummm, let me amplify that statement, a "BIG Party Night."

So I´m letting my "inner dancer" out, and quite rapidly I realize why I keep him hidden.
I´ve never been very good at landing airplanes, but there were lots of "Airplanes" here at Burn...

We met up with some backpackers from England and danced and drank all night. I danced with Mille.

and her friend Patience...

Angel and Carlos´planes crashed so they left, mine was still flying and looking like it might land.

Here a couple of the noteworthy exchanges:

Millie comments, "You´re really good looking for an American." I think there´s a compliment in there somewhere, but i´m still trying to find it.
"How long are you here for?" Millie asks
"8 days" I answer.
She laughs HA HA HA HA HA !!! Apparently anything less then 3 months in South American is a crime in the thriving underworld of the backpacker subculture. Those fiends.

At this point millie´s friend is dancing with this guy who is a really good dancer, but nothing is happening. So I decide to talk to the guy and see if I can get something going as it will probably improve my.. umm odds. Did I mention he was a REALLY good dancer? So I´m talking to this guy and it went something like this:
"Dude, she´s waiting for you to kiss her."
"Its no good, it wont work." he replies
"How do you know unless you try?" I insist
He replies "Hey, I´m comfortable with my sexuality"
I can hear the voice in my head "Ladies and Gentlemen we´ve just lost cabin pressure"

So at 6am they closed the discoteca kicked us out, and after my plane crashed I was walking back to the Flying Dog when I ran into Luigi. Interesting note Luigi is stright out of the jungle, in fact he was attacked by an anaconda and has the scars on his leg to prove it.

I packed up my bags and at 7a I´m waiting for an hour and a half for Angel to show up and get me on the Sacred Valley tour. No point in sleeping as I´ll never wake up if I do. Luigi crashed on the couch in the lobby and I ammused myself by waking him up every 15 minutes, alternating with "Dude are you asleep?", and "Dude, are you awake?"

So Angel never shows, too hung over to get out of bed so I head off anyway to my tour because he told me if I wasn´t up at 830 I would lose my tickets. I found the bus and got on and toured the sacred valley.

Here´s what the hike up to Pisac looked like

and from the top....

I´m thinking a little snow and chair lift and were in business!
and from the very top...

At the top, I´m either dead tired and hungover...

or MAYBE I´m going for the quiet-mysterious-seriously-tortured look that women love to save... Really, it could work, ya you´re right, probably not...

The next highlight on the sacred valley tour was Ollantaytambo, which was probably the most facinating yet. 70 ton blocks of granite moved the top of a nearby mountain 7 kms away, (ya they use that weird backwards metric system here.)Here´s a shot of my third climb of the day with only 15 minute gurn naps between destinations to sustain me...

Being that this is the rainy season, I´ve been pretty lucky not to get caught in a downpour. Sometimes in rains at night, but clears in the day.Finaly in the town of Ollantaytambo we get caught in a downpour.