July 17th - Pisac

Today we took a taxi to the market at Pisac. The journey took us through the Sacred Valley and into the tiny village of Pisac where they were celebrating the Festival of Carmen. You may think PARE means stop in Spanish. It doesn't. It means honk so everyone knows you're coming through the intersection. The only problem is everyone else is honking (and going through the stop signs) too. It was a harrying trip.

City of Cusco



Market at Pisac

Festival of Carmen dancers



You take their picture and then pay them. It's so sad to use the children in this way.

Dancers coming out of the cemetary.

After a day at the market we seek out a taxi to head back to Cusco. As we are walking along the main street in the village, we hear someone yell out Cusco. There is a 10 passenger blue van parked in the alley waiting on a couple more passengers so it can head out. It looked a bit shady but after a few minutes checking out the other passengers, we decide to hop in. I was sandwiched in the back seat between two students from New Jersey. Kim was in the jump seat one row up. It was very hot and crowded and made for an interesting trip back.

Tonight we had our orientation for the trek. They gave us each a duffel bag to pack our things in that will be carried by the horses (mules). We met our guide and the other 9 trekkers. I suspected we would be the oldest in the group but I didn't really think we would be a generation apart from everyone else. We spent the evening packing our bags and trying to ensure we had everything we would need for 5 days hiking in the Andes. The group consists of one married couple (us), two brothers from New York (Sam & Ian), an 18 year old from New York (Nika), a law student from Wisconsin (Amanda), two friends from California (Jim from LA and Hudson from SF), a medical student from Chicago (Theresa), and a couple from Norway (Karine & Jim). Should be interesting...