Thursday, October 19, 2006

Day 8 - Semi-world adventure

Day 8 - 08 October 2006

Ok stealing most of the text from Paul. Reading his blog, it was pretty much what I wanted to say, but since I'm a bit lazy, im gonna steal his. I'll add bits and pieces however and remove them as relavent. I'll also update it during the time as I get some names from Jen, she is really good at them :p (thx in advance J)

We left Cusco bound for Ollantaytambo which is a town built on mostly Incan buildings. In transit we passed thru the Sacred Valley of the Inca's which is a fertile valley with many incan ruins on its floodplain and the slopes of the surrounding mountains. The countryside is dominated by eucalypts bought here by the Spanish from California - not sure how long ago but not recently as they are well established both in plantations and growing wild.

The sacred valley grows a unique corn that cannot be grown anywhere else (or so the guide said)- it has very large kernels and is very substantial as a food - much more so than the simple sweet corn we are used to. As you would expect there are many varities of corn here and corn is a staple of the diet - they use it for drinks, sweets, soups etc etc. They make a purple sweet drink using the purple corn that is very tasty and refreshing. I think the name of the drink is Chicha. It was a really nice drink. We were all given a taste of it, and apparently it was a milder version of what they normally drinks coz Freddy, the guide, said we can't handle the full strenght.

We were taken shopping, and me, being me, didnt buy anything.. However, I had a game of soccer with kids and Brian. He is good I tell u, well, he has to be, he is Irish :p. After this, I was feeling too bloody crooke. Could've been the altitude sickness, but I think it was motion sickness. I was fine after being a bit anti for a while, and a whole lot of sleep.

We eventually ended up at this hotel that didnt provide any water after 7pm. It was lucky as some of us were just about to get into the shower and we had decided to have dinner instead first. Otherwise, they would've been stuck inbetween showers with no water.. darn it, maybe should've let them have their showers.

We were playing this game called Sapo (i think), which is kinda like darts. The aim is these fairly heavy gold coins into the frogs mouth which is on a table. However you can still earn points if the coin lands in any of the holes on the table. Well, it was fun.

The next day would be a treking day. Everyone needed a good sleep and had to get up early as we had to kinda argue with the hotel ppl to turn on the water at 5am.

Off to bed..
zzzzzz

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