Iconic Peru

Today we had a long drive (almost 400km) from the valley of Cuzco south through the Altiplano to the city of Puno on lake Titicaca. We were up at 6:30am and down for breakfast, finished packing, checked out and on to the bus at 8:00am. Our hotel in Cuzco, the Taypikala is on a very narrow street, so buses can't come to the door. We walk down a 1/2 block to a bigger street, and our luggage is brought down for us. It takes a while to get out of Cuzco, as it is quite spread out. We are taking the Interoceanic highway, which connects Peru, Bolivia and Brazil. The route first takes us along a river valley, and is quite winding.This is an agricultural area, with lots of potato fields and livestock. Andreas points out some corrals on the hillsides. The sheep, llamas etc are put in these at night so the pumas won't attack them as they would if they were spread out. This area is the range of the pumas, but because they are nocturnal, we won't see any. At one point we pass a st...

A free day in Cuzco, but we keep pretty busy! We get to sleep in a little (7am). Nice breakfast at the hotel with lots of fruit including our new favorite granaria. (like a larger sweeter passion-fruit) and an omelet bar. At 9am, Andreas takes a few of us to the Alpaca factory store. They give us a good description of how to tell between the fakes and the real thing, the different grades, and how things are made. The clothing in the store is expensive but beautiful. I fall in love with one of the first sweaters I see and decide to treat myself. Even if I buy nothing else here I'm satisfied. We stroll back towards our hotel, the morning started off cool, but it's warming up now. We stop for a coffee, then back to our hotel to get changed and ready for our cooking class at noon. We are picked up by Melanie our guide for the market part of the tour. Karen and I are joined by a couple from Catalonia, and we walk a few block over to the market. We can\t go into the usual one, t...