Heading out to Machu Picchu!

Buenos dias mis amigos!

This is just a quick entry to let everyone know that we´re going to be MIA until Dec 2nd. We´re starting the Salkantay trail up to Machu Picchu tomorrow morning (early! 4:30am!). I´m a little nervous because the highest pass (on day 2) is 4800m but I think it´s fairly gradual so hopefully we won´t get too sick. I´ve got some coca leaves to chew on to help, though I´ve yet to be convinced about their effectiveness. Anyways, if you´re into prayers/encouraging thoughts, send me one on wednesday! We´ve met others who have done the Inca Trail which is supposed to be of comparable difficulty and they struggled through all right... this was very reassuring for me because I know I´ve got some better leg muscles than most of those girls! Vain, I know, sorry. It´s a 5 day trek so we will get to Machu Picchu on Dec 1st and get back to Cusco in the evening. It´s a bit ridiculous as there´s trains up and down but there´s just something about hiking it... I think I´d be rather shameful if I didn´t walk up. We´ve decided that we can only do one major trek in the next month and remain happy so that´s opened up some time for us and we´ve been enjoying Cusco. We did the vast majority of our christmas present shopping yesterday which was fun... we bought some things for ourselves too, like a hammock and an alpaca blanket... and pants, I just can´t turn down nice pants for ten bucks. It was great to finally buy so many of the things we´ve oogled for the last 3 months. We´re just about ready to move on, though. Cusco is fun but it´s not really south american. It feels very European; organized and clean without the randomness and insanity that makes so many south american cities so interesting. And there´s English, so much English, it´s really bizarre. The shoe shine boys speak English, which is crazy. Uneducated children are bilingual. It´s just amazing though I feel bad if I don´t try to speak Spanish since I´m the one in their country. Anyways, I have one really fun tidbit to share about Cusco: you can drink for free all night, men as well as women. No joke, it´s so much fun! I think that some people in the main square get paid by the number of people they recruit into their discotech so they just want to give you free drink tickets. So you follow one person, tell the 20 other people grabbing your arms that you´ll go to their bars later (and mean it), work your way out of the crowd and into the bar. Get your free drinks, dance a bit, then leave and get the next free drink tickets. There´s no such thing as cover charges. Oh and in the daytime many of the discotechs play movies on projector screens so you can go there for dinner and a movie (again, no cover charge). We had an AMAZING meal at one of them last night while watching a movie. Apparently you can still go out on dates even if you haven´t spent more than 3 hours apart in 3 months, haha.

Alright well this is longer than intended. Lots of love to everyone! See you for christmas!

-Dawn