Travels of a Fish Nut

I had two full days in Cusco. The first was spent trying to acclimatise. I decided to spend the second on a day-trip around the Sacred Valley, despite the fact I was still suffering from altitude sickness and seemed to be going down with a cold. I’m a sucker for pain! Say what you like about the Incas, but they certainly seemed to be masochists! The Sacred Valley is, as you’d imagine, a valley. Steep, barren mountain sides (these are the Andes after all) with lower flat areas in between with rivers and fertile soil. Given the choice where would you establish a village? The flat area perhaps? Seems the sensible option. Not for the Incas. Oh no, they decide to build their cities on the mountain sides, creating terraces then bringing soil from who-knows-where to make fields which require complex irrigation systems to keep them watered (but not too watered). Why???? There’s got to be a reason but I can’t see it. Maybe defence – I think the towns we went to were established quite late in th...

I didn't get the best welcome to Cusco. The hostel I was staying in had a free airport pick-up service which decided to use. I’d given them my flight details and they said they’d be at the airport with a sign with my name on. So you can imagine my surprise when there was nobody there for me. I had taxi drivers hassling me, offering ‘help’ and in the end I let one of them phoned the hostel for me as much to get them off my back as to find out what happened. The hostel said they didn’t have my flight time which was why they weren’t there. (Luckily my anal-retentiveness had led me to print off all the emails I had regarding accommodation and transport so I could show them they had my details yet they still tried to deny they’d received my details!) They said they’d be there in 15 minutes so I was getting quite annoyed when they turned up after half an hour in a crappy taxi with a tear in the backseat and no seatbelt. I said I wanted a seatbelt so ended up sitting in the front which ga...

Sorry I haven't written in ages. I went on holiday and had an amazing time (more on that in upcoming posts) then had one week in the Falklands to finish off things at work and say goodbye to people and places. I flew home to the news that a plane on a similar flightpath to us and in the air at the same time mysteriously dissappeared which freaked me out more than I thought possible. I was home for a week in which time I got experimented on by my sister, went to London and had my hair highlighted (not big news for most people but pretty impressive for me as I'm as phobic about the hairdressers as normal people are about the dentists!). The second week was spent in Spain with mum and Steve (more on that too later). I had a great time and got a bit of a tan although not too much as I was lathering on the factor 40. My antimalarials made me more sensitive to sunlight and as I'm not used to it anyway I was really paranoid. So I got back a week ago and have spent the week doing, ...