Horseback-Riding in the Cusco area....
At 8am, we met our guide, Gabriel. He was cool, with a big ol' cowboy hat, with great English! (Apparently, he worked for a cruise line for about 5 years. I think it was Royal Caribbean.). He was great! Very knowledgeable, educated, and knew all about the ruins... Apparently, if you want to be a tour guide, they have special classes, and he's taken 2 years of it! He really knows his stuff. I'd highly recommend him to anyone who wants to do the Machu Picchu thing next!! (Just let me know, I have his business card)
So Gabriel took us to 4 of the local ruins: Q'enqo, Tambomachay, Pukapukara, and Sacsayhuaman (sounds like Sexy Woman).
At this point, my memory card was completely full, so all the pictures here are from Neill. I haven't gotten them all from him yet, so these are only a few. Eventually, I'll post the rest up here when I get them...
Picture with someone dresses as a priest to the Sun God (I think?) at Q'enqo
Getting our horses (my guy was Alisan). That's Gabriel on the left.
Dave and Sampa
Neill was with Anteras
Um, they really liked to eat the grass...
Oh, and Alisan ALWAYS wanted to be in front.
Dave at Pukapukara
Riding through the amazingly beautiful valleys (away from the cars and their smog!)
Sexy Woman! Oops, I mean Sacsayhuaman!
And 5 hours later, our tour was done! Yup, 5 hours! For only $30 (per person)!
Gabriel was awesome. He took us to a local dealer to buy some high quality authentic 100% alpaca sweaters. Those are the things to get when you're in Peru! Alpaca wool is extremely soft and warm... We also found out that Peruvian excavators (sp?) are working hard at digging up new ruins every day. Apparently, the government spends a lot of this project. They even found mummies a week earlier! A first!
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This was definitely our favorite day! We got to see lots of sites, ride horses (first time for me!), AND not have to overuse our leg muscles (no stairs!!!). The scenery was AMAZING... I would highly recommend this!!!
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