We were rudely awoken at 5:30 AM by a member of our group loudly exclaiming, “Oh no! I lost it! Where is it?” And she kept on projecting her voice in a constant stream, effectively killing sleep for the rest of us. She should get a job as an opera singer. She certainly has a good pair of lungs on her.


Remember how I said that all we had was flyscreens in the windows? We all heard her as if she were in our rooms with us. She was LOUD. And it was nearly 2 hours before we needed to get up. The sun was only barely peeping over the horizon. I think she woke him, too.


She constantly talks, but this was next level. As we were all lying in our beds, jolted out of sleep, she ran, still exclaiming at the top of her voice, to get the manager. He comes back, she’s still TALKING at the top of her voice, then they go into her room and I swear I heard furniture being dragged around.

It turns out that she couldn’t find a plastic envelope with the photocopies of the itinerary, her travel insurance etc. Let me emphasise that she still had all these things digitally. She still had her original passport and yellow fever vaccination form. Everything was fine. It was just photocopies.

She sat opposite me at breakfast. “I’m worried that I put my house keys and car keys with them,” she said. Them, 5 minutes later, she fished around in her bag and lifted up… “ my house keys!” She smiled as if she had performed a magic trick and expected a round of applause. No one at the table was feeling it… When she lifted up something else and said, “ My gym card!” you can imagine the lack of response she got.

We asked if she could have left the envelope in her big suitcase that she left at the depot in Puerto Maldonado. ( We brought only a small bag to the lodge.)

”Oh no, I was looking at the pages the first night I was here.”

She put in a report of stolen property to the manager. I’m sure he needed that stress.

When we were back at the depot and repacking our bags, I saw she had a plastic envelope full of papers beside her case.

”Is that the envelope you woke us all up for?” I asked loudly… though not as loudly as her.

She pursed her lips sulkily and said, “ I not talking.”

There was no apology, no “Sorry everyone, I panicked and didn’t realise I was so loud.”

Nothing. I hate it when people aren’t accountable for their actions.

Still, let’s look on the bright side. The rest of the group are great!

So we’re all a little sleepy at the end of the day. It’s just past 8PM and I’m going to be climbing into bed as soon as I press ‘Publish’ on this.
But omg – we’re in Cusco. Land of the Incas!

Lots of people stayed in the hotel and took it easy for fear of getting altitude sickness, but I was fine running around Quito, which is far higher than Cusco. I did a bit of washing, because rainforests and socks don’t go well together. The stink was abominable.
I decided to take a walk to have a look at the place. I was feeling just fine.

Of course, as my name is Frogdancer, I had to take a picture of this.

Cusco was the capital of the Incas.

The city sits in a bowl surrounded by mountains.

They conquered the Andes and Peru, Argentina, Bolivia, Chile.

There were 12 million Incan people.

There were only 1,200 Spaniards,and they conquered them. How? Superior technology (guns etc) as well as superstition. The Incas had never seen white skinned, blue eyed men riding horses.

“They showed them too much respect,” said Claudio.

Originally, there were 14 Inca kings. Only the last one met Pissarro, and we learned in Quito how that meeting ended up!

Spoiler: not good for the Incan king.

Cusco only has 600,000 people.

That was all the information Claudio had before we got to the hotel. It was a short ride.

There was a handicraft market right over the road from the hotel, so of course I had to have a look. I made a deal with myself that I wasn’t going to buy anything on the first day, but I took photos of the stall numbers who had things I liked.
We’re here for 3 nights, so I have time to go back. The shops don’t close until midnight on weekdays.

Should I order an alpaca burger for dinner? I’m tempted…

Dad joke of the day: