Thorsten and Suzi 03/10/06

Couple of changes of our plans to report! Unfortunately, I developed a completely horrible and nasty throat infection on Sunday which meant I was not well enough to go on our inca trail hike, which was due to start today. Was a bit disappointing as we had been looking forward to it since March when we booked the trip. However, that`s what we have insurance for and, instead, we are spending a few more days exploring Cusco and then on Thursday going to Machu Picchu and Aguas Calientes for 3 days by train. It`s a bit of a cop-out but I did´`t want to end up with pneumonia as that would have truly been the icing on the cake of a not very promising start to our South American travels! Am really excited we are still going to experience sunrise at Machu Picchu and we are both really looking forward to the trip. In the meantime, I have been prescribed a total of 5 different medicines so the law of averages states at least 1 will do the trick. The husky voice has been useful for rolling my "r`s" in Spanish though, which I usually can`t do, so at least one positive thing to come out of feeling absolutely dreadful!

Also, we have changed some of our flights slightly to give us more time in Santiago de Chile and Brazil. We now have a definite return date of Thursday 9 November so are planning to celebrate our return to the UK and our anniversary with a slap-up brekkie at Heathrow. How romantic! We´re then immediately heading out for Walter`s 60th birthday party in Trier on 10 November, back for good on Thursday 16 November, and we look forward to catching up with you all some time then.

Today we visited the church of Campana de Jesus and the Pachacutec memorial. The altar in the church features the most gold of any altar in Peru and was absolutely astonishing. We have also found officially the cheapest food on our travels. The menu del dia at the restaurant next to our hotel costs, before 2pm, 75p for 3 courses and a drink. The soup is a meal in itself, containing every vegetable you could think of, so we were completely full and all we could manage for dinner was rolls from the supermarket! Tomorrow we are going up to the ruins of the temple of the sun at Sacsayhuaman, which is famous for it`s rock formations aligned with the rays of the sun at the winter solstice, each rock weighing up to 130 tonnes. Actually sounds a bit like Stonehenge, although there is also a theory it was a fortress as there are 21 bastions on the site, so we shall enjoy exploring it, hopefully in the sunshine (our $13 in the end-of-season sale jackets were the best buy ever as it`s been freezing cold every day since we bought them!).