Two Beers and a Pretzel

After a comfortable nights sleep, everyone from the trek decided to meet fof lunch at noon, go to the Irish Pub for a while, then negotiate a group rate for deep tissue massages.  I also stopped and got a shave at a barber shop.  Then we all met back at the Pub around 7 PM to continue the St. Patty’s Day festivities where I met a surprising number of Irish girls – considering it’s Peru.

I can’t believe I found 2 cute brunette Irish girls – Caitriona and Anna Marie

Some half Irish girls – J’nae and Alexis (who I first met in Puerto Madryn like 6 weeks ago)

Anna Marie was ditched by her friends as they’d been drinking since 11:30 AM.  Their original plan was to complete 12 hours of partying, but around 10:30 PM, she’d had enough and could barely stand up.  I walked her back to her hostel – which was an event in itself since she couldn’t remember where it was.  Considering the fact that she was a bit too drunk, I was a gentleman and left after getting a nice goodbye kiss

I got back to the Pub just in time to find Gavin, J-nae and Alexis and make our way to the most popular club in Cusco, Mama Africa.  This place is a dingy, smoke filled, hook-up joint with bad dance music – but it kind of has a captive audience, as everyone from Loki gets in free.  I opted out at 2:30 AM as the smoke was too thick and the music was really bad.

- – - – - – - – -

Then on the 18th, I visited the Cathedral here in Cusco.  Unfortunately, they did not allow photography, but the complex contains the most religious treasures in South America.

This was J’nae’s last day in Cusco, so we ‘had’ to go out again to Mama Africa.  It was a bit better as the crowd was not as heavy, and Alexis was fennageling free drink tickets since she’s currently working at Loki.

- – - – - – - – -

On the 19th, Gavin and I visited the Saqsaywaman (literally pronounced ‘Sexy Woman”) archeological site.  We must have drank a bit too much last night. because we had successfully negotiated the Inca Trail, but this place was killing us.  This was an Inca temple that was pillaged for stones to build the Spanish cathedrals.  Some of the remaining stones are as big as a truck.

The former fortress is atop a hill overlooking Cusco – next to the white Christo statute that is illuminated at night, giving the the affectionale nickname – “Neon Jesus”.

The view of the town is pretty good from his perspective.

I’m probably taking a bus to Nazca to see the lines, then another to Lima, so it may be a while before I can post again…

I’ve been researching flights to New Zealand, and they’re running $2500 to $3000.  However, Lima to LA is $1100, flights from LA to Fiji are about $700, and Fiji to Auckland runs $200.  Most of the expensive flights go thru LAX anyway, but without the relaxing pace that I’ll attempt.  I’ll save some cash, pick up and international driver’s license (so I can rent a car in NZ) and a few new Lonely Planet books, see my cousin in LA, then hit a beach in Fiji for a few days before flying to NZ.  We’ll see what happens…