Pictures!

Here are some of the pictures I promised!

La Plaza de Armas (where you can find just about anything) with a Spanish Cathedral in the background.

Another Church in the Plaza de Armas (not sure of the name)

The view from the steps of the Church pictured above.

The view of Cusco from high up in the surrounding mountains.

Alpaca. So necessary.

Pancho, my host mom's pet parrot. He's a troublemaker.

A view of the Inca ruins at Moray. The tour guide (who really knew her stuff) told us that it's believed that this place was used to conduct agricultural experiments. Each new level is at a different temperature, and it's thought that the Inca planted certain crops at each level to see what would grow where. All those little dots you see (in the middle and around the steps) are people.

Me as we are making our way down into the ruins.

Helping each other get down the steps. They were just small rocks protruding from the stone walls, and some were really hard to get down. I bumped the crap out of my knee on one of them and I still have the bruise to show for it. But it was obviously totally worth the pain, haha.

This is Salineras, the salt mines that have been around and maintained in the same way since pre-Inca times. The water that flows down from the Andes has 80% salinity. Our guide had us dip our fingers in and taste the water- very salty. On the right edge of this picture you can see a smallish black spot in the middle of the salt pools- that's a man harvesting the salt that's ready in his pool. The guide said that a large group of families have owned anywhere from 20-50 salt pools for generations, and it's their job to maintain them still.

Here are some mountains in the Andes- we stopped along our tour to take pictures.

That's all I have time for right now! I have to get home and eat lunch. I have a better update coming soon- I just need to find the time. :)