Viva las Cusco

this is in reference to the Elvis song, viva las vegas, which played not once but twice during our dinner in Cusco last night. some of you may know that i have a bizarre affinity for elvis movies, blue hawaii being my favorite and viva las vegs being second. so needless to say i let my freak flag fly at dinner and poor Philip got to experience it. :)
Coming back from Ollantytambo in the morning was an experience. We took the locals bus to Cusco which at first seemed empty. Then at 1130 when the local train pulled into Ollantytambo it was a mad house! Drivers yelling for people to take their bus, locals sprinting and dragging their children to get on the bus. it was insane! but it{s always more fun to travel that way then with all the other gringos, as Philip would say.
Now while we really didn{t experience altitude sickness in Cusco a few days ago, this time it was different. by the time we got to the city Steph and i were both feeling light headed and out of breath. i twas really bizarre. we had to walk slow and i had to take advil to kill the head ache. (this seems to be the way altitudes affect me, bad head aches). But we managed and went to check out the ruins in Cusco, Qorikancha. These Inca ruins form the base of a Colonial church and Santo Domingo convent. IT was pretty cool inside. One weird note, there were paintings and on particular series were 12 paintings detailing the life of Mary. Steph called to my attention number 10 which was the circumsision of Jesus. i kid you not. so that was a first. we kept looking closer and it was a pretty graphic painting complete with blood. eek
AT the ruins we ran right into the older Americans who we{d met at the airport on our flight from Lima to Cusco. THey were so adorable and greeted us with hugs and kisses. Then one of the sweet older men came running back and took a picture of us. I think they felt like it was their kids traveling or something. they were just so so adorable.
aFter walking around the inside of the ruins and doing the museum we walked down by the gardens which was actually my favorite part. I was camera crazy with allthe different types of flowers. Dad you{ll die! I took tons of pics so you can identify them all for me. THey also had this beautiful rose garden, just stunning.
post Ruins we headed down to the Cusco Market where we became very good at negotiating deals. I cant say what we bought since they are presents, but we had some good finds. Market was followed by the wonderful reuniting with our luggage ( we had backpacks with minimal clothes for the sacred valley days) so it was great to see all of our clothes again!
And of course the evening ended with our wonderful farewell dinner with the Aussie Angel, Philip. Steph had some grilled Alpaca in a brandy sauce and I tried an Alpac burger. I think i liked mine more than hers. They tend to only understand well done here, not rare.
We really really did enjoy Cusco and could have even stuck around longer. It{s a great city so it was sad to leave. WE were leaving our home base, our great hotel, Ninos Hostel, the Sacred Valley and of couse our dear friend Philip. But the best part about leaving a place you love is knowing you{ll come back. And i most definitely will.