Entry 1 From Cuzco To Macchu Picchu

> hola como estas.  Soy en Cuzco, Peru y lo es muy
> bueno.  Hope all is well
> with you.  This keyboard is very funny with lots of
> extra characters. There
> are two shift buttons and many keys have three
> functions.  This makes me a
> slow typer.  Well, that pretty much sums up my stay
> in Cuzco, so I´ll see
> you all in a couple weeks.
>
> Will
>
> Ha ha ha, estoy muy comico!  Okay, there´s actually
> some neat stuff going on
> here.  We´ve been eating in a lot of cool
> restaraunts in the area enjoying
> local cuisine including alpaca, cuzquena beer, some
> corn beer stuff called
> pisquo?, and I have tried for the last few days to
> order cuy, or grilled
> guinea pig, but it takes three hours to prepare and
> we´ve been to busy and
> hungry to have time to make such reservations.
> During many of the meals
> there are live bands that seem to kind of sneak into
> the restaraunt and
> start playing their music and then asking for money
> ´(I´m not sure whether
> any of this is organized by the restaraunt manager).
>  These groups are quite
> skilled at playing the wind pipes, and most
> especially skilled at playing
> Paul Simon´s ´¨I´d rather be a sparrow than a
> snail¨´song.  In fact, it must
> be a requirement for most of these flute masters to
> learn this song becaues
> it has been almost omnipresent during my my stay so
> far in this country.
> My sister and I just returned from Macchu Picchu
> yesterday which was a lot
> of fun.  We were there on a two day trip where the
> first day we were to
> catch a train from cuzco and get to Macchu Picchu
> around noon and spend the
> rest of that day there and then try and kill a
> second day in Aguas
> Calientes, the town at the base of Macchu Picchu
> where we were staying. 
> This would have been the plan were it not for the
> luck that my sister
> suffered a terrible bout of altitude sickness/heat
> exhaustion soon after
> arriving at Macchu Picchu requiring me to enlist the
> help of three english
> men to help me carry her out of the site to the
> medic center.  It was pretty
> scary at the time, but she recovered quickly after
> sitting in the shade at
> lower altitude.  The three guys were extremely
> helpful as was the action
> themesong, being played during the whole event by
> some lone piper on the top
> of Macchu Picchu, of ¨¨i´d rather be a sparrow than
> a snail...¨  You may
> have noticed that the damn umlaut sign has taken of
> the quote button key.  I
> can´t find the quote key.    Any way, it all worked
> out for the better
> because we spent the rest of the evening in aguas
> calientes drinking coca
> (as in cocaine leaf) tea (which by the way is
> nothing like the drug cocaine,
> in fact it is not a drug at all, I tried snorting
> the leaves) which helps
> cope with altitude sickness.  We got up at 5:30 the
> next morning and were
> among the first group to arrive at the site.  We
> then proceeded to hike to
> the ¨sun gate¨, then over to the top of ¨huana
> picchu¨ and then over to ïnca
> point¨ All were absolutely breathtaking hikes, quite
> literally I guess, but
> I mean to imply that the view and beauty of the area
> was incredible.   I
> have two rolls of of photos taken in the area, and I
> don´t think any of them
> can come close to expressing the awesomeness of the
> area.  Because the first
> train doesn´t arrive at Macchu Picchu until 11:00am
> we shared the sight with
> only a few hundred other tourists for our entire
> visit.  Also most of our
> hikes were in the shade.
>
> Well, there are many more stories I have to tell you
> all, but right now I
> have to go because the band in front of this
> internet cafe has started to
> play the Paul Simon tune again.
>
> Will