This city is really growing onme. When we first arrived i didnt knwow hat to make of the traffic and noise. Its a big city with lots of cars and very small streets. As we explored more of it today i really began to see mpre of its charm. I do have to say that all the folks trying to sell you things..and all the tourist kitch stores are hard to take, the architecture and scenery make up for it.

Our first order of business today was to get out of town. After a quick breakfast that included coca jelly

 

Our freind Lenin met us at the hotel at 9 am and we headed south out of town..first stop was the sweet litle town of Anduahayuillas. It has a church that has been called the 'cistine chapel of the americas'. We wernt allowed to take pictures inside, but it was incredible. Everythign was guilded… And there were soem mamazing frescos.. The church dates from the 16th century and is built on an old Inca foundation, musch of the building and artwork has been rebuilt recently

 

Next stop was piklaqti, a pre inca ruin from the wari people. It dated from the 1100's.. It was huge.. And we were the only visitors there for most of our visit. The workmanship was very differnt from the incas,but amazing in its own right.

On the way to our next stop, Tipon, Lenin stopped at his favorite bakery to get bread for us..and for his mom.. Its a really differnt sort of bread cooked in wood fired ovens and made with anise and cinnamon… It was very good

Our final stop with Leninwas Tipon anamazing Inca structure known for its water works. The whole site was criss crossed with water channels, most of them working

 

Then it was time to go back to cusco . It was time to say good bye to Lenin. Which was pretty hard to do.. In the short time we had known him we really got to be friends.. Which was amazing since my spanish is so terrible. We still managed to talk abotu everythign we saw.. And moved on to life,philosophy, politcsadn family.. The foundations for any good frinedship. Such a good guy. Someday we would liek to bring the kids back here.. If that works out, it would be great to recinnect with Lenin again!

 

Next order of business was to go and was all ov our dirty clothes. We put on our last set of clean clothes, and took the restto a local laundrymat. While they were grtting de-disgusted, we went out to explore more of cusco.. It really has some nice sights..

Then We walked around. Town some more

Last stop was the museum of Pisco.. The national drink of peru. Its a distilled spirit from grapes..and very nice. There , sergio, the Piscoterra gave us a sampling of five differnt types of pisco.. From nonaromatic andaromatic grapes, blended, and incompletly fermented.. Each had its own character and taste.. The pis de resistancw as a 45% gav made fromaramotic torontala grapes. It was superb. sergio was so full of unfo.. Some of you might knowthat ive recently taken to …uh… Making … Uh spirits(moonshine) .. So the lesson in distilling was very helpful…it was great to talk to someone about heads, bodys, tales, esters, aldehydes.. And drink wonderful spirts as we did so.

 

From there we went and picked upour sweet smelling laundry..

We skyped home to talk to hannah and brit (and the dogs..who we are missing)

Dogs are not the best skypers

 

Then went out to a great dinner at Casa Del heidi ..great food !

Ok.. All for now..lets see if this will upload.

More tomorrow.

Nite all, nite sam

-me