Cusco 3rd April
Today was a free day and we all had things to catch up on.
Mandy and Paul headed out to walk round Cusco (and the Alpaca shops…) Paul
found a beautiful Vicuna coat, a snip he thought at $8000 !!!! Vicuna is the softest of all but the animals
are protected, so it is managed cull that provides some wool but it is very
rare and therefore expensive. Needless to say it didn’t make it into the
suitcase !
Sheena and Eileen did a supermarket sweep of llama souvenirs,
then found a fantastic tapestry shop and Janette and Steve did blog and spent
hours on the phone to the bank in the UK getting accounts unlocked !!
By lunchtime they’d had enough and Steve had discovered a KFC in the main square so decided some fresh air was needed. Given that he has hardly eaten for a week due to altitude sickness and we’d been on Bolivian food (not good…) for 2 weeks, a treat was needed so we sat in the sun in the square and had lunch. Sheena and Eileen who had discovered Starbucks on another corner wandered by and joined us on a park bench in the square in the sun.
By lunchtime they’d had enough and Steve had discovered a KFC in the main square so decided some fresh air was needed. Given that he has hardly eaten for a week due to altitude sickness and we’d been on Bolivian food (not good…) for 2 weeks, a treat was needed so we sat in the sun in the square and had lunch. Sheena and Eileen who had discovered Starbucks on another corner wandered by and joined us on a park bench in the square in the sun.
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| The Girls in Cusco.... |
Within minutes they had attracted half the street sellers
and mayhem ensued as they tried to buy earrings as the police tried to move the
seller on. All very funny.
After lunch Steve went back to the hotel and the girls
headed off to the Alpaca wool factory which Mandy had found out about from the
guide yesterday and Mandy had been heading for in the morning. A riotous
afternoon followed with us trying on nearly half the shop with a big group of
the women staff helping and much laughing. Sheena modelled items for Janette’s
Mum, Sheena and Eileen kept liking the same things, nothing was in the right
sizes and then they couldn’t get the card machine to work so Janette had to get
them to reboot their internet router !
We came out financially lighter and luggage weight heavier having had a
fun afternoon. When we got back, we discovered Mandy had equalled our haul in
her shopping expedition !! Happy days….
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| Looks like Sheena's 1980's perm !! |
In the evening we headed back to the main square which was beautiful and very atmospheric in the evening with the lights twinkling on the hills behind. We found a nice restaurant and had a lovely evening with good food, wine and pisco sours. First proper dinner in ages !!
Hello, so I’m back from the Caribbean and a bit like London Transport - then after waiting for a blog then 16 have arrived at the same time! I will look through but as always the photos are immense and the explanation of deserts and lifestyles are interesting, thank you for the economic stuff as well as the history. Tremendous. Any abuse of SMJ is to be encouraged as well. Surprised that Steve has rejected the coca leaves as I always he was on drugs by his normal behaviour? I know your internet is intermittent and producing a blog with all the photo input can test the patience of a saint (yada yada etc) but I would love a map (yes I know where Bolivia is!) showing your route/progress. When on tour I used to track a route on Google Maps and then take a screen shot of it which makes it a photo/jpg and then you can insert it into your blog. Bloody Tony ives... who’s idea was it to send the blog to him.... I never did like him.... etc etc.
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