First boring day, so a bit about the food.

Despite the below freezing temperatures overnight we atually slept very well. Until 5am when porters came and knocked on our hut doors to wake us up for another early start. Incase this wasn't enough to wake us from our slumber they also kicked awake the sleeping llama that were laying like rocks between the huts. The didn't approve of such treatment and made unholy noises. Imagine a donkey being chainsawed in two and I think it would sound something like a llama being kicked awake.

This was enough to make the humans get out of the huts pretty quickly and into the common room where breakfast was being served. Breakfast in Peru is a very traditional affair for westerners. Everywhere we've been so far it's been the same: Tostada, jugo y cafe o the. Ie. Toast, juice and coffee or tea.

There's usually a choice of juice, banana, orange, pinepapple or mixed. Bafflingly one of the choices at the dead posh hotel in the desert was "Tuna", or at least, that's how it sounded. No one was brave enough to try it so I guess we'll never know whether it was brine or oil.

Anyhoo, after this we piled onto our bus and drove back for about 2 hours until the road was good enough to meet with our normal tour bus. We transferred and then drove for another couple of hours before stopping for a picnic lunch.

The picnic lunches aboard the bus are also a very traditional thing. Again, every one has been identical. The tour leader, Blokey, is very much into fresh fruit and salad so the routine goes like this: A couple of people are assigned helpers, a couple of people are washers and tidiers, a couple of people are assigned peelers and a couple of people are assigned cooks.

Procedure for lunch:
The helpers get out the tables, boxes of equipment and food from the fridge.

The washers fill some bowls with antiseptic wash and wash food that isn't going to be peeled - Eg., Lettuce, Tomatoes, apples, etc.

The peelers peel onions, carrots, cucumber, bananas, etc. They also chop and prepare the fruit salad.

The cooks chop the vegetables and make huge trays of salad. Also mix up a load of tuna, cucumber, mayo, onion and tobasco, make guacomole, dips.

The helpers clear stuff, open tins, mix, chop, etc as requested. They also lay out trays of breads, meat and cheese.

And that's about it. Every picnic lunch table looks identical after about 10 mins. You server yourself bread, meat, salad, dips, and then go back for fruit or fruit salad. It's quite impressive.

One of the new people, the wife of the older Aussie couple appears mildly obsessed with the Mangos here. Since lunch she did not stop telling anyone that would listen how wonderful the mango was. This may sound insignificant, but NO! It's not. In fact, let's give her a name now. Mo. Short for Mango Obsessed.

We continued the drive all afternoon and finally arrived in Cusco, which was to be our base for the next few days while most of the group went on an Amazon excursion. Curse them. Why weren't we offered that when we booked?