Cusco, Peru.

When arriving in Cusco we didn't exactly come the pretty scenic route. I'm quite a fan of the grimy underworld but Ryan wasn't too impressed as we rolled through crumbling areas full of litter and suspicious looking characters. Keen to make a shuffle on to our hostel we got a taxi which took us through some amazing parts of town. My favourite was what I can only describe as the meat street. A long street lined entirely with butchers which had slabs of beef just lying on tables in the middle of the pavement and plucked chickens nailed to their doorways. The lack of refrigeration, amount of people and dust from the streets flying around these stalls was enough to convince me that any sample of this produce by an unhardened Scottish stomach would result in a swift case of food poisoning. None the less it was an amazing street to behold and the vibe in the area was buzzing.

After checking in to our over priced (by Peruvian standards) hostel we went off to explore the city. The centre of Cusco is much nicer, depending on your definition of nice, and the Spanish influence on construction is very apparent. Like any other city in Peru you'll find the Catholic churches created by the Spanish when they invaded. What we didn't know before arriving is that that most of these churches were created on top of Inca Ruins which the Spanish destroyed in order to build their houses of worship. What they didn't destroy to build on top of they destroyed in order to use the stones to build with. But it's not all bad, some Inca stone walls remain intact and can be spotted around the city if you have a sharp eye. It is however apparent that the Spanish did take one huge, steaming dump on Peru's history during their oppression.

Cusco was nice but we couldn't understand how people could spend weeks there. A usual amount of touristy things to see and do but we found a couple of days was enough and that we were ready to head up to the more rural area of Ollantaytambo where we were to chill before hitting Machu Picchu a few days later. Our time in Peru was flying by and we couldn't believe it was almost already time for us to do what we were expecting to be the highlight of our time in South America. So after meeting the most obnoxious Scot we had ever met (Oxford student, says it all) it was time for yet another early night in preparation for the winding road up the hill the next day.