a desperate attempt at a catch up...

I've been about a week behind on this for a while now so time for hopefully a bit of a catch up. Arrived in Cuzco very early in the morning on sat 31/1 (happy birthday to a certain jelly baby!) after a rattly ride. The bus got very cold as well which we were not prepared for so didn't do too well in the sleep stakes. Stumbled bleary eyed into the station to be pounced upon by various people from hostels and taxis - more than we could cope with at the time but thankfully i remembered frith had said to barter for a hostel at the station rather than trying our luck in town so managed to get a place for pretty cheap (we think) and got bustled into a taxi (lovely driver! had a 'good' chat in spanish) and arrived at our abode to try catch up on a bit of sleep. We're staying at Balcón Colonial which is a 5 min walk from the main plaza. It's pretty simple but for 15 soles ($9) a night we have our own room with private bathroom (pretty rubbish shower tho) and a little balcony with a table on it that's perfect for breakfasting and the only one in the place, score! The main staff here is a cool young guy (18) called Rolando who we have fun trying to speak spanish with and teaching a little english.
So on saturday we spent most of the day with Frith (girl who was in my spanish class in chch) who has been here since november and was leaving on the 2nd. Did a lot of eating and meandered up to the Jesus statue on the hill to get a view of the whole city. Cuzco is gorgeous. Even meandering left us pretty out of breath but thankfully haven't really suffered many ill effects from the altitude besides that and the occasional headache. That evening we went to a 'discotheque' that has social salsa from 9-11 every night - amazing to watch! no way we were gonna join in though, lots of regulars who are incredible, did do a little shuffling at the side. At 11 the music turned pretty cringeworthy and we were tired so we bailed pretty early, leaving frith dancing on the bar!
On Sunday we had a sort of rest day, slept in and wandered about a bit. Found the crazy market place that Frith had given directions to. It's supposedly closed on a sunday but there was still a lot there, including several aisles of animal parts including whole skinned cow heads, insane. Managed to only eat bread and cheese that day i think, although pan con queso frito is delicious enough in itself. The cheese is a bit weird and plasticy but that makes it good for frying. On the way to the market we passed by a crowd of locals in plaza san fransisco. There were street performers and what looked like fun-fair type gambling stations, food vendors selling nothing even vaguely familiar and artists, was quite the spectacle! The only other touristy looking person we saw looked as bemused as we must have. Further on down the street there was a little parade happening with a marching band and people carrying a golden cloth of some sort, we've now come to realise that these little parades seem to be quite common place as we've seen several more since then. Would be nice to know what any of it meant though!
Monday morning we ate breakfast on said breakfast balcony then went back to the market to hunt for avocados and ended up getting a few other things besides (including some more pan con queso frito). Put our bartering skills to good use. The market is divided up into sections and there'll be rows of people selling pretty much the exact same thing right next to each other, talk about competition. Don't really understand how it works for them, we mostly just pick who we go to at random. That evening we hunted down some Ceviche and Causa washed down with Cusqueña cerveza for dinner - local dishes that were recommended to us by the australian girls at the hostel in BA. Pretty scrumptuous. After dinner we strolled the streets again (so pretty day and night) then headed up the hill to The One Bar on 7 Angelitos for happy hour mojitos (apparently the best in town - they were good) and chilcanos whilst listening to a local band, very enjoyable. The band asked where everyone had come from and we were by far the furthest from home.
On Tuesday after our ritual balcony breakfast we booked our inca trail adventure leaving the following morning. Then headed to Jack's cafe to share a massive and delicious second breakfast (lunch) and lots of their ginger, lemon and honey tea. Whilst there we saw/heard a more impressive parade going past outside with some people carrying a big wooden shrine type thing (probably has a real name - looked like something princesses would be carried around in on servants' shoulders). The street was packed and once again i wish we knew anything about why it was happening! No one near me had any idea either. Went back to the hostel with the intent of then carrying on to a museum but got a bit waylaid as it started hailing hard out, fairly substantial sized hail stones too and lasted quite a while. On our walk to the museum there were even piles of hail up against buildings. Walked around the Museo Inka trying to make sense of the spanish descriptions (there were a few in english too). Learnt a bit about the history of the region we think, though we coulda had it all wrong! Saw some incan gold and mummies and traditional weaving techniques. Lots of old, old pottery, the influence of the spanish etc. For dinner we tried making some instant Tarwi stew - interesting to say the least! supposed to have more protein than soy but doubt i managed to eat enough to get any benefit. Then we packed our stuff up ready to begin our expedition to Machu Picchu the next morning!