It is the start of the rainy season here. That being said it rains everyday usually around 2:30 or 3:00. The past couple days the rain has been light and only lasted a little while but today it is a nice gentle rain and appears to look like it might last about an hour. I can see some blue skies on the other side of town. We have the most amazing view from our hotel. We are part way up the hill and overlook the city. As I look straight out the window right now I can see the mountains that surround Cusco. I have the same view from my shower! Of course the window is much smaller and I hope no one can see me! Otherwise the weather is Cusco has been gorgeous. The mornings are crisp and the afternoons are nice and warm. The evenings are quite chilly. I feel like I could wear shorts during the day but a winter coat in the evening!
I woke up this morning feeling though I had slept in, for the first time this trip. I threw on some clothes and tip-toed out of the room so as not to rouse Pat. Our hotel provides free breakfast. I was able to enjoy breakfast with a few folks from near Cape Town South Africa, Ireland and Australia. A few of us exchanged emails and welcomed each other to visit our native countries. After I finished breakfast I went to sit out in the courtyard. When I finally looked at my watch I realized it was only 8:30 and I know I had been visiting with the other folks for quite some time. Pat said she heard me leave around 7...so much for sleeping in. Today Pat and I wandered around Cusco and did some Christmas shopping. I can assure you this is the first time in a long time that I have done any Christmas shopping in October. Our first stop was a Fair Trade textile shop that I read about in my guide book. That place was really neat. They had a museum explaining the process from the sheering all the way to through the actual weaving. The Fair Trade museum guarantees that 70% of your purchase goes to the women that make the goods. The work was beautiful and quite different from a lot of the stuff you see on the street.
Today our goal was to go into as many stores as possible and see if we could start to feel the difference between alpaca, baby alpaca and llama wool. I think we finally have it figured out. Baby alpaca is very fine, alpaca is soft and the llama is more coarse. But then it is hard to tell if the stores have mixed synthetics in with the wool!
We ate lunch at Patiti, a restaurant that served many different types of food, from traditional Peruvian to Asian to Italian. I opted to try the spaghetti to see what it is like here in Peru. The sauce was mostly meat, which was pretty good but I like a little more sauce. Pat had a chicken salad served in Avocado and a bowl of chicken soup, which they split for us. The chicken noodle soup was excellent! A young guy came in and sat down at a table by himself. We invited him to join us. He had just finished University in England and was taking several months to tour the world. He had been in Rio De Janeiro, Bolivia, Peru and then heading Santiago Chili then to New Zealand and Australia. He is traveling with a group but kind of hopes to stay in New Zealand for a while. I was envious, his trip sounds awesome.
We headed back to the hotel just as the rain was starting. We have one more night here in Cusco and get up EARLY as they are picking us up at 5:30 to catch the train that takes us to Aguas Calientas. We spend part of the day there and the next morning we head to Machu Picchu! I am really excited to see it!
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