It is just past noon here, and yesterday was awesome! We bought our tickets for Machu Picchu, which is the most expensive part of the excursion, and it was only $ 62! After that we went to the market to get gifts and treasures. I found some great stuff for some people, but I still have a lot more stuff to get! Everything here is so cheap, so it´s hard to resist getting people presents! Then we went on a tour of the local convent that used to be the main temple of the Incan empire. The Andeans built this amazingly geometrically-sound structure that the conquistadores built a church and convent over. But in the early 1950s there was an earthquake in Cuzco and everything that the catholics built crumbled and all that was left was the structurally sound indigenous building. It makes me wonder to what extent we should travel and impose our culture on others. Around the temple they had tons and tons of gold. 20% went to Queen Isabel of Spain - because she worked so hard for it - and the other 80% went to the catholic priests that took over the temple, so now most of that 80% is in the Vatican ... great job catholicism because that was not was Jesus said to do: take over the world and exploit them and FORCE them to be Christians. Christianity is about liberating people from their problems, not forcing onto them Christianity by creating problems for them. What I don´t get is why it isn´t returned to the people of Perú?? Anyways, I know tons of great Catholics, but Catholicism still eats me up sometimes, but then again the modern Church has become a lot more progressive, so I guess we can only look forward?

Then we went on a 4 hour tour of the ruins around Cuzco: Saqsaywamán, Q´enqo, Pukapukara, and Tambomachay. These ruins were OUTSTANDING! Many times I wondered why he was repeating the same information, and then I realized that he was speaking in both Spanish and English and I was thinking in both!! This is a huge step in becoming fluent!!! We got a little bored of listening to the tour, so we went off and explored a little bit. One time we almost got left! But we caught the bus and everything was great! We also did backflips at the different sites and took some cool pictures, but I still cannot find a way to upload the pics on facebook or anywhere :(

Today we are just hanging in Cuzco and going out tonight! Tomorrow we´re heading onto Pisac and Ollantaytambo, and then to Aguas Calientes for the night (the town closest to Machu Picchu!) We got a tour guide to MP, the Sacred Valley (Pisac & Ollantaytambo), and the tour yesterday all for s/.65.00!!! That´s only $21.66ish!!!