Sunday: We left at about 8 am with Matt and met up with some other volunteers named Signe and Troels, and we caught a bus down to Pisac, which is in the Sacred Valley. Apparently the market is in full swing on Sundays, so we spent a couple hours just wandering around there and checking out all the cool stuff. Then Kass, Signe, Troels, and I took a taxi up to the very top of the ruins around Pisac. (Matt had already hiked them so he just caught the bus back home.) It took us about 4 hours to get all the way back down the mountain to Pisac, but the trail was absolutely gorgeous and the ruins were amazing! I was kinda expecting for the ruins out here to start to all look the same, but every new one we see is just incredible. We had a lot of fun hiking around and taking silly pictures. We then got on a bus back to Cuzco at about 5 pm, and it only seats about 28 people, and the seats were all taken, so we had to stand on our already tired feet. That wouldn't have been too bad, but then they proceeded to CRAM people on that bus until there were literally 61 of us. Oh yes. I counted. And we were packed in like that for the entire 45 minute bus ride. It was ridiculous. But an adventure, nonetheless!
Monday: We did our morning work at Ayarmaca, and then Kass and I went to the Centro de Arsenal and got a few more souvenirs for ourselves and families. After lunch we headed out with our two new roommates, Jack and Eric, to explore a little more of Cuzco. We went up to San Blas, and then down to the San Pedro market where we tried some fruit juice...it's pretty cool actually, you pick the fruits and they blend em up right in front of you, and they don't add any water or anything to it so it kinda has a milkshake-like texture. Pretty tasty. So we just walked around for a few hours, stopped in a few stores, and just did Gringo-y things. A pretty chill day compared to this weekend!
ALSO. I forgot to mention this on Saturday: Kassie and I have officially tried cocaine. :) haha not in THAT way, of course. But coca leaves are extremely popular here in Peru, as kind of a "cure all" type thing. Coca tea is the main thing they use, but they also take coca leaves and chew them up for about 15 minutes to help with altitude sickness. So when we went horseback riding, our guide gave us all some coca leaves to try to help with the altitude. Kass and I weren't having any trouble but we figured we would try it anyways...it was nasty. We chewed it for about a minute and then spit it out. :) BUT! We tried it. Rock on.
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