A busy Saturday

First, a quick update from last night. I tried alpaca in a restaurant. It was okay but kind of dry. Could have used some gravy.

Today, Sadie and I met early in the morning, but first, I started my day with breakfast (bread, marmalade, cheese, and coffee) and met a Bolivian girl who I got to practice my Spanish with, since she knew no English! ¨Next, I got a tourist ticket and we went to Temple of the Sun, also known as Qorikancha. Lots of the spellings of ruins and such are in Quechua, which is the indiginous language spoken here, and apparently it has lots of Q´s in it! Anyway, it was originally an Incan temple but when the Spaniards came, they took all the gold and melted it down, and turned it into a church, but some of the original Inca masonry still exists. It was pretty interesting. We had plans to go to several museums this morning as well, but most things are closed for the holiday. The parade started lining up on the main street around 10am. It´s now after 6 and STILL going. I don´t know how there can be any Peruvians left to watch! We sat in the Plaza and watched the proceedings for awhile, but I´m not sure how long you can really watch a parade. After a week it is starting to all look the same, even with the incredible costumes, dances, and music. While we were sitting and relaxing by the fountain, Sadie got her hair braided (just one braid, with beads in it), venders came by constantly to sell their wares, and a street child befriended her. Patting her hand, leaning on her knee, and trying to sell her dolls. It was quite sad, and he knew how to lay on the guilt.

After that we returned to our respective homes for lunch and made a plan to meet in the afternoon. After I got quite lost looking for the intersecting streets, we found each other, and took a taxi to look at some ruins.

Side note: anything involving vehicles here seems to be quite dangerous. When you are walking, it seems they try to hit you, and riding in them is also an adventure. We zipped through all these tiny one-way streets, somehow avoiding pedestrians, a little old lady (barely!) and even llamas. There are llamas all over this town today. Apparently they can be quite uncooperative.

Anyway we made it safely to our destination. My roommate recommended that we take a cab to the farthest ruin from town, and then walk back, stopping at 4 different ruins, so that was the original plan! First stop: Tambomachay. Small Incan ruins with some neat water drainage. Took a picture of a little girl with a baby goat.

Side note #2: it is not free to take pictures of people here. After pictures they hold out their hands for payment.

Next we went to Pukapukara (I swear I am not making these names up) and checked out the ruins there. Then we decided to take a bus to the next ruins, Q´enqo. We were going to go last to Sacsayhuaman, which are the biggest and best ruins, but it was getting late, and we are going there for all the festivities tomorrow, so we decided to head back to town. Another bus, another adventure, we figured out where we were, and stopped in the markets on the way back. Made my first 2 touristy purchases (well, almost) and got a sweater and a zamboña, or panflute, which is what we learned to play, sort of, in the music class. Now, we are in the ïnternet bar¨on the plaza where we might actually eventually eat dinner!