Don´t worry, be happy :)

The parades through the plaza were exciting at first but over a weeks worth of costumes and dancing, the novelty wore off and we started avoiding the crowds. The last day of Solstice was Tuesday and the whole 5 days weren`t as crazy as I had expected. The party we went to up on the hill was a private residence with a ton of property so naturally, we went exploring in order to avoid the horrible music. We found this rope bridge with sticks as the base. Pretty scary, but I survived. You can tell how high it was with the city lights in the background. Amazing! Tuesday was the final parade and dance in the plaza except this time they were in more traditional Inca clothing and marched their way up to Saqsaywaman, up in the hills near Cristo Blanco, to continue the show. We wanted to try and beat the crowds up there so we took the bus, but it didn`t make much difference. I guess people were skipping the plaza parade and going straight to Saqsaywaman as early as 9am. We didn`t get there until about 12:30 and it didn`t even start until close to 2:00. We were standing on a hill with thousands of people watching the exact same thing they were doing in the plaza. It would have been more enjoyable if we weren`t constantly losing our footing on the dirt. There was another hill that they had blocked off, but about 30 people broke through the police barrier in full sprint. The police were able to swing their clubs around and get the people back, but only for about 15 minutes, when a couple thousand people broke through. At that point, there was no stopping them. They covered the hill and ended up with the best seats! Why would they have blocked that off to begin with? One of the traditons of this festival is that they sacrifice an alpaca (looks like a llama) so even though it sounds malicious, our curiosity made us stick around for that. We were pretty far away so it was hard to tell, but it looked like about 8 men carried the alpaca onto the stage, all huddled around it. The alpaca was making standard alpaca noises (not sure how to describe the sound of one, just use your imagination. It wasn`t happy). And you could see the men all moving back and forth. When they broke away, one man was carrying a bag that is supposed to contain the heart. Well, it looked like a bunch of smoke and mirrors because first, there was smoke and second, they hid the alpaca behind a wall. Well, the next day at volunteering I talked to Timo, the guy from Holland who hangs out with locals, and he informed me that there was no alpaca at all, it was a recording of noises, and the heart in the bag was from a cow. I`m pretty sure the Inca people would not be proud of this fake sacrifice. We left before it was over in order to avoid being in the middle of any rushes to get out.

My last day of volunteering was Thursday and I went hiking on Friday with Gadi and Timo. We walked up to Saqsaywaman (forgot to mention that it sounds like `sexy woman`) and continued past it to the back country. It was so nice to walk around up there. We found a pretty high peak of rocks so we sat for a while and I lost my head in the clouds. Lynne and I met a girl in Rio who was telling Lynne about a place she visited that wasn`t fun for her because, `you would really have to enjoy nature!` We both kind of laughed at this since we obviously did enjoy the outdoor activities more than the museums or partying. But, everyone has their own interests while traveling.

I am leaving Cusco tonight (Saturday) for Arequipa where I will visit the Colca Canyon and see tons of condors. I had a really good time in Cusco and I will miss all the Bob Marley played in the bar. Be happy!