Ollantaytambo

ha! say that five times fast.  That is where we are, in oh yay tay tombo, which i think tom should be excited about because its like the whole little town is very happy to see him. But its really oh Yan tay tombo.  Sad to say we haven´t found a computor that will read my camera´s memory chip, so, no pictures. you will just have to read my descriptions.
We´ve been in Cusco the past week.  Cusco is really beautiful.  Yes, there may be more gringos than peruvians, but it seems there is a reason for this.  The streets are mostly narrow with walls and cobblestone streets built by the incas.  We were staying at a wonderful little hostal up on a hill by the plaza de San Blas and I am continually fascinated by the gutters.  There are gutters built in all over the hill with fishhead spouts and sometimes when they go downhill the gutters wind about and have big naturaly shaped rocks incorporated into them.  sometimes stones are left sticking out of the side of the building, kinda of like the incas though ¨"this one sure is pretty, lets just leave it here"  or conversely " this one sure is heavy, it would be a pain in the butt to move"  Either way, they are aesthetically pleasing.  As are these nubby bits that the incas left sticking off of otherwise perfectly carved fitted stone walls.  My favorite wall is this one http://image.shutterstock.com/display_pic_with_logo/61046/61046,1190750338,2/stock-photo-inca-stone-wall-cusco-5650960.jpg  In real life it has a kind of greenish tint and there are images of a serpent, condor and puma built in.  in the picture you can see the head of the puma with his trapezoidal ear (he is looking to the left). 
Cusco is by far the most pleasant city we have visited.  Going through cities has been unavoidable and the experience is usually less than thrilling.  Cusco is however very pleasant to walk around, with its narrow streets it has less traffic and less pollution.  Also all the tourists inspire lots of cafes and restaurants which aren´t exactly unwelcome.  We´re also staying in a lovely hostal with lots of very nice people, and views, and a girl, Hannah who is starting a bannana bread baking enterprise . . . mmmmm.

But now we are in Ollantaytambo.  The town is pretty fascinating.  It was built by the Incas, or perhaps before them, and all of the waterways still run through town.  Theres a babbling stream on practically every street.  The town´s in the middle of incredible high mountains, most of them terraced.  Yesterday we started wandering upstream and couldn´t stop.  We ended up miles outside of town and both probly got a little sunstroke.  But the scenery was beautiful, and oddly deserted.  We also saw a GIGANTIC hummingbird.  really it was enormous and a little scary.  I thought it was a swallow at first. 
  Tomorrow we plan to walk about 15 miles along the river to aguas calientes, enjoy the hot springs, then go to Machu Pichu in the morning.  Then back to Cusco before headint to Arequipa, through the northern part of Chile and east to Jujuy for a month with the gauchos working on a sheep farm and dairy.  Clearly we´ve done a great job sticking to the wonderfully drawn itinerary i made. 
hopefully we will get the chance to post pictures soon!