2/25 Highest Point - 3800 meters!!! Pant! Pant!

We had a leisurely morning walking to the Cathedral and wandering around while mass was going on. Breakfast was included here so we went to the same restaurant where we had dinner the night before for papaya juice, tea and two rolls. Then we went to a museum nearby that is an old cloister of the Mercedarios, a religious order founded in 1200s in Barcelona and arrived here right after Pisarro and favored by him and given a huge chunk of land here. Now it has rooms of religious paintings, a room with lots of gold and silver church stuff including a huge silver menorah and a gigantic chalice/monstrance with large pearls, diamonds and rubies. Also there was a beautiful courtyard with many flowers. This is where Pisarro’s brother and another conquistador were buried but now have been removed. We really enjoyed it and was well worth the 10 soles.
We also went to a bank to get change as money came out of ATM in 100 and 200 soles bills. No one will take them, they want only small change. That took about an hour.
We came back here to eat lunch (I had my leftover chicken and rice from last night) and waited for pickup for our 5 hour bus tour.
It didn’t start out very well, they were 40 minutes late picking us up and then said we had to pay extra to go into the Cathedral for a tour. Since we’d already been in today, we waited by the exit sitting on the steps watching the crowds. We obviously missed them and they didn’t look very hard for us and went off to the next museum 2 blocks away. We tried to get the guard to let one of us go in the exit to see if the lady from Arizona with the 2 year old in the stroller was still in there. He refused. A nice Peruvian guy sent a little girl around the other way to check for us and they were gone!
So we raced over to the next museum but were afraid to pay and go in, in case we missed them coming out. Betty snuck in the exit and tried to look around. We waited almost an hour and finally they came out. It was Inca ruins that the Spanish built a big building on top of. No one knew the ruins were there until 1950 when an earthquake collapsed much of the building and these ruins appeared. Now both are rebuilt and on display. We would have been very interested!
}But we got on the bus and headed up and out of town to 4 stops of Inca ruins in the area. Betty talked to Kelly and her daughter from Perth, Australia. I walked with the three Swedes. The woman is a banker/financial person, and the guy who helped me with some steps and said I must work out!! turned out to be an opera singer with the Swedish Opera company. His last name I think is Edholm and I didn’t catch his first name! There were also 4 Japanese women, one of whom didn’t go in anywhere as I think she was sick from the altitude and she mostly stayed on the bus.
Rodrigo turned out to be a pretty good guide, explaining how the Inca’s split and moved these gigantic rocks, without wheels, dynamite, metal tools! They are all fitted so closely together. He said they made copper models of their structures before.
The first place was Saqaywoman (pronounced sexy woman!) a big ceremonial party place. Another stop was a waterfall sort of hotel for the kings up at the highest point. We could see a gorgeous glacier covered Andean peak in the distance. We stopped at an authentic alpaca market for sweaters, hats, jewelry and I resisted buying the $200 gorgeous silver necklace!
After being dropped off back at the plaza, Betty and I went looking for a Peruvian football shirt success! for Jackson! and then to a pub with a balcony again overlooking the square for cerveza!!
Off tomorrow for the Sacred Valley and then spend the night actually DOWN near Macchu Picchu for a very early visit to MP the following day after a train ride up. We will return the next day here and then take a bus for 6 hours with some interesting stops down to Puno on Lake Titicaca near Bolivia.  All are scheduled and paid for tours so not to worry! Nadia is even calling a friend taxi driver to take us to the bus station Thursday.

Ciao!