Another day… after another overnight bus. Turns out trains in Peru are crazy expensive. As an alternative, we’ve started booking the “luxury” seats on the buses. We boarded and were totally thrown by the big lazy-boy style seats with individual screens and a selection of recent movies on tap. And then we realized the sound didn’t work. Our flight (er, bus?) attendant didn’t seem to care. We slept. Mostly. And then we were whisked away to bed in Cusco at five in the morning. A couple of cold showers later and we were walking around town. Friends and family have raved about Cusco. I can see why. It’s charming and full of Incan architecture, women dressed up in traditional clothes walking through the streets with baby lambs and llamas, and even an…”INCA!” The little girl below was SO excited to see the Inca that she not only screamed, but ran up to him and wrapped her arms around him. It was like a little girl back home seeing Santa for the first time. In a word, it was adorable. I couldn’t resist turning around to try to get a picture of it.
Our plan for the day was quite simply to walk around. We even paused outside of the Inca Museum debating if we wanted to go inside, until we reminded ourselves we hadn’t planned on doing anything other than walk around the town, acclimate ourselves to the altitude, and take it easy before we made our way to Machu Picchu.
Andrew and I are positive we could have saved a lot of money on this trip had we brought along a tent. However, I’m not so sure I would have been able to sleep so soundly atop a tuk-tuk in the middle of a busy afternoon in Cusco!
I barely remember taking this shot of Momma in the market. I think I shot it from the hip as we were walking through, but boy am I glad I took it. I really love it. What you can’t see is that she’s looking out of one of the doorways of the market (which lit her perfectly) to the street surrounding. I don’t know what she’s looking at, but I love that I caught her observing Cusco while so many people are going about their business around her.
I could not get enough of the colorful clothing. If I didn’t have enough to hang up on walls I don’t have, I would have gotten one of these beautiful dresses just to hang up! They really are works of art! (I’m also still kicking myself for not getting an embroidered hat in Cabanaconde a few days ago. Again, just to hang up on my wall as art. I should have known better to pass it up when I did…
While we were waiting on Momma to buy something (again) I couldn’t take my eyes off of this nun. She didn’t move from this position, maybe didn’t even look at something else the entire time we were waiting. I wondered what was on her mind and shot this picture from the hip as well, probably talking to Mom at the same time about what color tablecloth or blanket she should get.
And then, a little dress-up action happened.
We were on our way back to our hotel when Mom got tricked into going into a shop along the way. While she was trying to decide what color or what size or what to get in general, one of the shopkeepers dragged me and Andrew in and proceeded to play dress up. And then for good measure, stuck a giant penis in Andrew’s hand that he seemed to grow quite fond of. (I mean seriously, why is it in every picture?) Putting these pictures on the blog is likely to lead to me receiving an email from my Mom. “I can’t believe you posted those pictures!” Well, believe it Momma! I did! And don’t tell me to take them down, because chances are I won’t have any internet to do so later! (Love you!)
