Cuy in Cusco

We stayed in Lima for two days and it is a fairly forgettable city. It is massive, with around 11 million inhabitants, and always covered in fog and/or pollution. The first day we spent 10 hours at a sports bar that had college football on 6 different tvs....heaven. The second day we borrowed ocean fishing poles from the hostel owner and carried the 10 ft beasts a mile and a half to the beach. It took us about 2 hours to get everything set up and only 45 seconds to get stuck in the rocks and lose our only hooks. We are now 0 for 2 in fishing.

The flight to Cusco was overbooked and I was the only passenger on standby....we didn´t know if we were making the flight until 10 seconds before take off and we had to sprint on the tarmac to the plane. The flight was only an hour and we caught a cab to our hostel. We wandered the city and got lost about 40 times. The city is very neat...a lot of old, colonial architecture and a huge plaza in the center of the city. It is very touristy and for some reason lots of people want to give me massages and drugs. Anyway, we stumbled upon a restaurant that served a 3 course meal with Alpaca meat as the main dish (for only $4....including a lemonade). I have eaten there 4 times in the 4 days we have been here. Alpaca is tasty...like beef with a slightly gamey taste. Went back to the hostel and finished my first book in Spanish (yes, I am doing something productive and not just traveling).

The next day we met 2 of our friends from previous excursions and booked our 5 day Macchu Picchu trek. I think that is all we did.....it was very stressful trying to choose from the 7 million travel agencies here.

Yesterday we took a cab to a set of Incan Ruins 11 km north of the city. Please note that Cusco was the capital of the Incan Empire for an extended period of time and many of the streets and buildings here today contain Incan stones and bricks.The road leading back to town has 4 different sets of ruins and we bought an expensive ($20 or 5 delicious meals at my restaurant) pass that lets you into all of the ruins. The Incans were quite impressive...too bad the spaniards had to destroy a lot of their wonderful architecture. We still saw hunting lodges, sacrificial platforms, and other mysterious Incan archeological sites. The final one had sweeping views of the valley where the city of Cusco sits. The tile roofs of the houses cover every inch between the bases of the surrounding mountains.

We were exhausted and starving after the long trek and decided to splurge on dinner....we were on a mission to eat the Peruvian delicacy ¨Cuy¨....which most of us would recognize as guinea pig. A group of 6 of us went out to dinner and only 3 decided to try the Cuy. It was quite expensive and did not look as appetizing as the alpaca. They brought the large rat out on a platter....it was completely in tact....teeth, legs, claws, ears...and even had a pepper shoved in its mouth. The waiter said you have to eat it with your hands and I volunteered to serve it up. I had to grab the two hind legs and rip the guinea pig in half with my bare hands. We then dove in like a pack of hyenas and tore the creature apart. There wasn´t much meat on it, but what we did get was pretty good...and yes, it did taste like chicken. 2 of the people we were with were vegetarians and one more was terrified of rodents, so they were thoroughly disguisted. Didn´t phase me...I was content with my new accomplishment and didn´t lose any sleep over it.

Tomorrow we are leaving at 5 am to go on a 5 day- 4 night trek up to Macchu Picchu. We hike 29 miles in the first 4 days at altitudes of 12,500-16,000 ft. Macchu Picchu has been a dream of mine for some time, so I cannot wait....wish me luck!