Feel much better today, don't feel sick. Just have to wait for the Imodium to wear off so I can get back to my normal routine.

Took a few photos from the 11th floor of the hotel after breakfast then got on the bus at 8am.

Today we have a long drive to Cusco with a couple of short stops along the way. The first stop was in Jolaca. There is an enormous market that runs every day, selling literary everything from shoes to haircuts to dried cow pats! I could have spent all day looking around but we only had 15 minutes. Yet again we were held back by the usual suspects who thought that 15 minutes meant anytime they felt like. We sent out a search party to find them but couldn't so we just had to wait. When they eventually turned up they have nothing but attitude and didn't seem to care. These were the same people that moaned about being late into Puno when it was their constant fannying around that delayed us. I'm finding it increasingly difficult to be nice, but that is what being a considerate human being is all about.

Next stop is Pukara for a comfort break. Then another stop about 30 minutes later, at an all you can eat buffet for 25/s. The restaurant has 4 musicians playing panpipes and guitars. I found it a bit annoying. Everywhere you go here they want to play their music at you and all I wanted to do was eat my lunch in peace! Chatting to Richard about humour and language. I could have done with a bit more time for lunch but we were on a schedule so had to go.

We stopped at another town after about another hour. This town was special because of the alien. Yes, you heard me! There was a museum all about maze which is basically corn. Here corn comes in many different forms not just yellow cobs but different colours and different shapes. The Incas used maze as a primary food source, eating it as we do but also making jam, sweet drinks and fermenting it to make beer and spirits. Once the museum started to talk about the Incas it started telling us about how they trapanned some people to remove evil spirits and wrapped royal people's heads in order to elongate their skulls. There was one body they found that had an elongated skull but appeared to be too small to be an adult and yet had adult teeth so it must have been an alien! National Geographic has (apparently) investigated the body but can't be sure that it is human. It all sounded a bit silly to me.

We eventually got to Cusco and checked into Hotel Midori. It was quite a nice hotel and the staff seemed very pleasant. Coincidentally, I was in the same room number as the last hotel 108. The others all set off for dinner but Steve and I have got into the habit of having dinner together so we headed down to Plaza De Armas.

We wanted to go to a tapas place Steve knew but it was full so we headed back to the square. The first place we tried was playing panpipe music in the restaurant and I just turned around and said no way. They had ruined my lunch and I couldn't face them ruining dinner too. We eventually went into a place that said they'd give us a free pisco sour with our dinner. It was disappointingly small but by that time we had sat down and were pretty hungry so stayed. It was a bit more expensive that we thought it'd be but it was getting late so we just laughed it off. I had pork chops and it was very tasty although the French fries were a bit rubbish. For a country that has 3000 varieties of potato, I still haven't had any decent chips yet! It was another pleasant evening.

Afterwards, we tried to find a bar for a night cap. There were a couple of salsa bars which offered a free drink but they were dead so we headed for a normal bar. I enjoyed it, they had some 6-8% Belgium-like beers and IPAs which seemed to make things better. Steve had water because he was still feeling a bit rough.

I had posted my blog and got a Facebook message from Serge so we tried to meet up before he left for his 5-day cycle ride to Machu Pichu but our timings were off and so we never got it together.

By this point it was late and time for bed.