13.6.2015

this weekend has been amazing. in the morning, we toured the ruins of ollantaytambo. i couldn't stop thinking about my mom and how much she would love this. incan ruins, terraces, history. it was awesome, and a great view of the surrounding valley and the city of ollantaytambo. ollantaytambo had the typical peruvian and latin american streets with the original water canals and pathways. it was what i had been looking for the whole trip. we left ollantaytambo for our night in cusco.

this city is amazing, i am in love. old fashioned: red roofs (ceramic semi-circle tiles) with stucco walls and small cobblestone and windy roads. we went straight to our hotel, and dropped our stuff off. it was a beautiful hotel, like always. we had extra time, so we got to walk around for lunch. we got lunch in a tiny place that took over 1.5 hours to get our food, but it was great. after, we had to rush to get to the hotel to catch the tour. We got there, and left for the plaza de armas. (there are plaza de armas in every city, it is like a main square) there was a festival, corpus christi, so it was crazy, but awesome! we toured the ancient city, and saw churches and old buildings and old streets. cusco was beautiful, i am falling in love with this country more and more with every minute that passes. 

qosqo was the original name of cusco, but was changed because the spaniards couldn't pronounce it after they conquered the land from the natives who spoke quechua. it was then changed to cuzco, then cusco after that. we saw the festival events, the cusqueñan flag (rainbow, go gay pride haha), the different centers. we toured things like the old incan architecture, the stone work; including the stone with 12 sides that fit perfectly with the congruent sides which clearly displays the intelligence of the natives and their masonry work. 

after seeing the various incan territories and palaces, we went tot eh central market, which was awesome! arts and crafts, food (meet [whole pigs, guinea pigs, everything], fruits of all kinds, some i had never heard of, quinoa and chia [which were extremely cheap, what would have costed about $90 in the states, i got for about $4] and everything else you could think of), and just interesting people. after that we had the rest of the night to ourselves. we split up and went to eat, then on our way back we got some beers for the night. we all met on the roof of our hotel and had a great time. there was a great view of cusco, lights, fireworks, and the stars were amazing. 

we laughed, told stories, and just enjoyed each others' company. i am going to miss this group of amazing people. 

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