from la paz, bolivia

hey kids, so, since we last talked there was... a lot.

macchu picchu to agua calientes to cuzco
this was about the time I started to feel less than swell. after climbing wayna picchu I waited around the front gate of macchu picchu for marce and some other from our group to come down. I contemplated buying a bottle of water to perhaps restore me but found out the prices were almost what they´d be in New Zealand. 18 sole sandwich? puh-leaze. after this we went to agua calientes where there was a big lunch for our trekking group... the scotish boys were also not feeling good, only ordering a place of potatoes and then staring at them, solemly, untouched, while all other chowed down. matthew the moutain-goat roofer from dorset bought the porters one of the comically large bottles of beer you see here (he´d already had two).

the train ride to cuzco was interesting because, firstly, i talked alot - having been seated across from two of my favourite people from our group (mara and sarah), who helpfully asked about my research interests, and then race relations in new zealand - and secondly because our train did something I´d never known a train to do... it went backwards and forwards, in near equal amounts. the first time it decided to make a radical change in direction I was seated on the toilet, watching the county-side wizz by. peru rail likes to segregate its trains in such a way that you do not have different classes in different compartments, but whole different trains. our tour company had put us on the touristico train, backed with backpackers. as we left agua calientes i looked out my window and saw the local train - peruvians only, standing room mostly - just in time to see two little incan angels flip me the bird.

anyway, the multi-directional train. basically for 4 hours we went backwards and forwards in varying amounts, receiving the explanation from the ticket agent that, well, this is how the train always goes to cuzco. brilliant. at around the four hour mark, most people having fallen asleep, the train aburptly stopped and we were informed there was a bus for 5 soles that would take us to cuzco in 10 minutes flat, or we could stay on the rockin-est train in south america for another hour. why did the bus take 10 minutes and the train 60? "because the train has to go back and forth into the station?"

well, we missed out on the bus. that was full in about a minute.

next time:
cuzco to puno to copacabana