Cusco- a word from Katie

I see dead people! Peru is not short of morbid curiousity as we visited a church with 20,000 people buried under it- their bones placed in pretty patterns for us to view. And this picture shows a mummy from a graveyard in Nazca, where the tombs are left open for the viewing of these dred-locked skeletons.

Thought it was about time I put a little effort into this website thing, and gave you my two-bobs worth of our life in Peru.

Despite trying to ignore my maternal nature I have been blissfully content this week as we have a home. We have shacked up in Cusco for 10 days or so and booked ourselves into Spanish school. It has been so nice to have a kitchen and make our own food, and to come back to the same place at the end of each day- and they even have a dog where we are staying (one you can actually pat-not a mangy, flea ridden thing as is normal for South America).

Prior to arriving in Cusco, the navel of the Inkan world, we visited the Colca Canyon, apparently the second deepest canyon in the world. We had both come down ill with some fluey/fever thing but Joel was recovering so made an attempt to descend into the canyon, but took a few wrong turns, met with some nasty looking cactus´ and ended up atop a cliff with no safe way into the canyon. So he returned to the town where we were staying- Cobanaconde, which happened to be celebrating the festival of their patron saint. This meant all the local people were on the piss for 3 days with multiple brass bands playing the same song continuously and everyone dancing the same dance continuously. For us it was a bit like the pied-piper as we heard the music and saw the people dancing through the town so we followed them to our first ever bull fight. Taking from the spanish influence, 5 men were dressed in the proper matador get-up and the chosen bull was forced into the ring where they proceeded to taunt him with their coloured cloths and once he was a little tired started to stab decorated spears into his shoulder blades. The final blow being a sword through his spine into his chest. Then the 5 of them huddled around him pushing on his rump trying to make him fall over until eventually (after a slow and surely painful time) the animal collapsed and all the cowboys came out to finish him off. I have only just acepted the idea of eating meat again, so watching this didn´t really encourage my new way of life.

Anyway, during all this the brass band is still playing and the people still dancing around so we got swept into the dancing parade and tried our luck at some traditional dance moves. Joel must have impressed one old fella who came up to him and grabbed his nuts with a big smile, before dancing off again.

Cusco has been a bit of quiet time for us as we are studying Spanish 4 hours a day and then have to do homework- such a strange thing to choose to do when travelling. But it is a beautiful city to spend some time in. It is also the tourist high season which means that local thieves are having a field day. I went to a nearby market last weekend and when we left we virtually had to fight our way onto the bus where I was crammed against the gear stick and the front window of the bus- it was so packed it was dangerous. Needless to say my wallet was stolen out of my pocket that was zipped up- sneaky bastards. Thankfully I only had the equivalent of $5 in it. Of the people in our hostal alone this week one girl has had her bag and passport stolen, another guy had his wallet taken and two people had attempts made on them after they were spat on to distract them. Welcome to Cusco gringos!