en la cuidad de cusco

well we haven't posted the last few days becuase everytime we're at an internet cafe we've been attempted to post photos...and its not working, frustration is mounting. So instead of graphics, here's an update in the meantime...So oringally we were supposed to leave on Saturday and head for Lake Titicaca on the border of Peru and Boliva, its the highest navigable lake in the world (13,00ft) and where the incan gods orginated, with beautiful water and scenery...but as conor's last post indicated, we got back on Friday night from Machu Pichu at 2am...dreading a long bus riding and more traveling. so we decided to stay in Cusco for the weekend...and what a good choice that was. After 4 days on the trail we needed some good food, hot showers, and rest! Maybe even a little TV. Plus, there's so much to see and do in Cusco that we've been busy. We explored the San Blas neighborhood, which is totally peruvian and really cute. Narrow cobble stone streets, with great resturants, views, shops, and of course, Andean people and their lamas all over. Saturday night we did a farewell dinner with our Irish and Aussie friends at a great resturant....the Irish crew had an 8 am flight to the jungle the next morning, but of course we stayed out til 3am...at where else, an Irish pub (the highest irish pub in the world that is). Lots of good laughs...until conor and i were accosted by a canadian that demanded to know why we voted for George Bush....and why are we all so arrogant, ignorant and stupid....that was fun....you can imagine conor's reaction. I think at one point he told her that george bush was his cousin, and that air force one flew him to Peru! Then we continued on to a peruvian night club with lots of fun dancing. Needless to say our sunday was slowwwwww. We hope the irish lads made it to the jungle.

Sunday we did some more sightseeing and exporling, and of course more delichous eating>! the food is soo good, and we're eating like kings right now....then we hiked up a 1.5 miles above the town, veryyyy steep, to the Saysaywayman ruins (read: sexy woman) that were really cool and gave an awesome view of the whole city of cusco. we were out of breath but it was fun to explore. Needless to stay we finally crashed last night.

Today we moved to a new hostel (much cheaper...trying to stay on budget) and then met Shaina Morphew and Dan Guerin who were here on a "get to know you, welcome trip" with their MBA peers from Northwestern. It was sooo great to see a familar face (plus shaina brought us vanity fair and sports illustrated magazines...sweeet), but the hilarious part is that Dan and Shaina didnt tell the rest of their group that they know each other (its part of their icebreakers...and getting to know eachother thing)...so when their MBA friends saw us touring together it got kind of weird! But we had a great lunch and visited La Catedral de Cusco and the Sun temple. Both are basically incan temples that were then transformed to catholic churches when the Spanish took over...so its pretty neat to see the totally different styles and combo of incan religion (sun worship, etc) and spanish crosses, etc. then we had a fun experience shopping for underwear at tiendas de intimas....they sell underwear in separate small shops here...its strange. Hopefully we'll figure out the pics things soon...tomorrow we have a 12 hour layover in lima before we fly to Santiago, Chile. I'm sure we'll have plenty of internet time then. we're looking forward to a new city!!