Locals, Inca sites and diarrahoea!!!

Hola!

Writing from the hostel where I have not left since 8 last night as I was struck down with some bug ,not sure if it was the $1.50 vegetarian dinner that the locals brought us to or just some random bug I picked up , but thankfully the worst of it seems to be over which is very lucky as we leave early tomorrow monring to start our 5 day trek to Macchu Picchu.
Cusco for those of you who havent been here yet is a beautiful city, seemingly the oldest city in Peru and most famous for its Inca traditions. Our hostel is just off a beautiful square called Plaza San Blas which is renowned for its artisan lifestyle, it has beautiful little bars and cafes and lots of locals selling jewllery, woolen products , hair braiding and busking - all of which we have either bought or taken part in!! Cusco is full of beautiful littl ecobbled streets which are just wide enough to fit a Peru taxi - about the size of a smart car through!!When a car comes you have to do a very quick side step to avoid being run over as they dont stop for anyone!A horn is essential here as you cant see around the corners. Every second shop sells the most amazing and cheap jewllery or hats, scarves, gloves, socks, leg warmers, bags and every other souvenir you can think of. Needless to say after we bought every woolen garment we needed for night time here we are now working our way through the jewellery shops! Although we have been told to hold off buying anything till we get to Bolivia as seemingly it a third of the price there which would be very cheap!
We are at 3,500 m above sea level here so the first few days we just chilled out and acclimatised to the altitude, luckily we havent been too badly affected , only getting out of breath when we have to climb hte hill back up to our hostel. The weather during the day is sunny and in the early 20s but drops dramtically after 6 when it gets dark. Luckily fashion wise anything goes here so my night time outfit of leggings, skirt, pink leg warmers with llamas on them, hoody, poncho and wooly hat fits in!! On our first night we stopped into a little bar that had some crazy local band playing with an even crazier local girl dancing in an outfit similar to mine! We immediately ordered the local drink - pisco sour - pisco rum, lime juice, sugar and 2 raw egg whites - goes down surprisingly well and by the end of the night we had befriended all the staff and a few of the locals and spent the night salsa dancing. Since then we have been hanging out with the locals in the square during the day who used to work in the circus and now make a living busking, hair braiding and making jewellery. We thought wed better make the most of these connections so the other day I was handed a bongo while some French backpackers were given panpipes and a horn and Hache (the local) had the guitar. After a quick ten minute basics in Bongo playing we had to do a little show and gathered quite a crowd of onlookers!! I also had a go at fire poys (for those of you who dont know what these are they are 2 chains that have things on the end that you soak in petrol then set on fire and then swing them around your head and stuff) Hache´s advice if I caught fire was to run to the fountain and jump in - luckily I didn´t have to do this although luckily I had jeans on cus I´m not sure my legs would have survived the flames brushing against my bare skin whcih happened a couple of times! I will have to keep practising with the non flame ones before I do any fancy tricks!!
Yesterday we went on a full day tour of some of the local Inca sites. Unfortunately I was coming down with the bug or whatever it was so couldnt enjoy it to the maximum but it was really fascinating to see these places, some of them in lovely little market towns where again we bought more jewellery - getting quite good at bartering them down! We had to climb quite a few steps to some of them which again reminded us how far above sea level we were as we got out of breath very quickly. OUr guide ´Willy Chai´ - translating as dear little Willy was quite entertaining and gave us lots of information about the life and the culture and traditions of the Incas. Drove through some amazing scenery , snow capped mountains and tributaries of the Amazon. Most of the houses are made out of mud bricks and it was like being transported back in time watchin them make these bricks in the field and plough with cows. Every so often a student would hop on our bus and try to sell us something- they were goven 15 minute slots along the route! The first guy had a demo on his laptop of some DVD about Peru we could buy and when the music parts came on he had to hold hte microphone up to to the laptop speakers - quite amusing - dont think he made any sales. The next guy was a little more exciting as he was trying to sell the local version of sambuca and had free samples. I made Jo try one - purely for a kodak moment!If you like aniseed youd love it!
So today we were suppoed to be going white water rafting but due to the bug we have had to postppone it till after our trek so will be staying in Cusco a couple more days after we return from Macchu Picchu. Thats about all the update for now, have to go stock up on toilet paper now as its BYO on the 5 day trek!! Love to all xo