A day chilling at Cuzco...Sep 21, 2009
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Today has been a very quiet day dedicated to not doing particularly much.
We got up at around nine in the morning and had breakfast in the hostel. We opted to go for a slightly more advanced breakfast today and had the Irish breakfast with extra bacon. This turned out to be a colossal serving and we were quite happy sharing one plate. It tasted really nice and we were very happy with our choice.
After breakfast we spent some time on the internet. My parents were in town and hence I was able to chat with dad on MSN. Always nice - and good getting some advice on places to go.
We then chatted for a bit and decided to go for the 5 day / 4 night Salkantay trek to Machu Picchu. We will allow for another day of adjusting to the altitude and leave early Wednesday morning (4.30). We will return late Sunday (about 22.00). We are using the same tour organizer as we used for going to the Sacred Valley yesterday. They have been very good and helpful.
Most people we have talked to thought that the amount of time we have spent in Cusco should be adequate for going on the trek. They normally recommend 2-3 days in Cusco before going. We will have been 5 days acclimatizing so we should hopefully be fine. Prudent actuaries as we are, we have doubled the high and low recommendations and taken the average.
The rest of the afternoon we spent sitting in the common room and reading various books. Iris has been listening to a Spanish course on mp3 and been reading her Spanish phrasebook. She has made great progress and will hopefully soon be able to speak some Spanish. Her Swedish is also improving greatly. However, she says that she’s soon got too many languages in her head and might start mixing Swedish and Spanish…
I have been reading George Soros’ latest book and the manual for our new camera. The George Soros book is interesting. The camera book is daunting - so many functions on the camera!
The plan for tomorrow is pretty much the same - we will relax before our trip and do some packing.
Marcus
