Cusco -- Day 5

Greeting from the high country of Cusco. First, i slept fitfully last night and don't know whether it was the three cups of cocoa tea or just the high altitude. Hopefully, tonight is better. Bert, thanks for your advice about getting a window seat on the left side of the bus on the way to Macchu Piccu to see the river. Suz, thanks for the Hanover update. Okay, here's what happened today. We did a visit to a vegetable market to buy foodstuffs as gifts for the healing ceremony later in our day with the shaman. I bought a bag of beans and some type of baked bread (mostly to be able to take the pictures of the ancient women in the marketplace doing the selling in their traditional Peruvean garb). I took a few other pictures there but the people all know the ropes -- before they allowed me to do theír picture they said 'propina' -- tip. One lady didn't like the tip i gave and handed it back to me. Tough customers. After that we went to the ancient Inca site overlooking the town -- a place we called ''sexy woman" because we had trouble with Sacsayhuaman, which means 'settled mind.' This site is quite remarkable as it has massive stone work cut and fit together in walls -- some of the stones weighing a hundred tons or more. How did they do that in the 1200's!? After this we visited the shaman for the healing ceremony, where we all had to place our intention or wish in the center of a scarf along with sacred items he placed in there. Then this was wrapped up and each of us was individually saged or prayed over by the shamen. Then all of our intentions were placed on a fire and burnt. We then presented the shaman with the foodstuffs we bought at the market as a gift to him. After this we joined a local family for lunch -- a homemade vegetable soup with local vegetables, guinea pig, rice, and a purple corn juice. The soup, rice, and corn juice was quite good. I told our host that in the USA guinea pigs are pets. I redeemed myself by giving them a gift of two CD's i made for Suzanne for her birthday. Okay, that's it for now. Later today we will visit the Incan Sun Temple.