I got so sick on Friday. That was not fun. Everyone gets sick here at some point though, I was just lucky I had been fine for the last three weeks. Our poor european stomachs aren't used to the food here. So I didn't go to school, and instead read. A lot. My hostparents were so very sweet. They kept feeding me tea made from this little plant that grows high up in the mountains. It's apparently really really good for the stomach.

Saturday I felt much better already, so I felt up for it to go see Pisac on Sunday. I bought a ten day tourist ticket that gets you access to 16 ruins and museums around the sacred valley and Cusco. I have been trying very hard to get to as many of them as I can, but I'm not going to make it everywhere. Sunday we first hit up the market, where I bought way too many presents. After that we headed up the mountain to the ruins. That was quite the climb, but the view from up there was gorgeous. The inca's didn't use mortar in their building. They found a way to balance the stones on top of each other so that they stayed, and withstood all of the earthquakes that the country has thrown at them. I also realise now why they all eat so many carbs. It's athlete's food left over from the Inca customs. I would want to carbo load if I had to walk up and down that mountain from house to fields every day as well. Anyway, the ruins were cool, the view was stunning, and the market was adorable. Altogether a good day. Except for getting there. Public transport here is pretty special. Everyone's favourite way to travel around the sacred valley is by collectivo. Collectivo's are vans which fit about nine people (or in Peru, fifteen). Sometimes you're lucky (mostly on the way to Cusco), and the collectivo gets loaded up to a comfortable fullness at the terminal in Urubamba, and it just runs straight to Cusco without stopping. Sometimes though (like on the way from Calca to Urubamba), the driver keeps stopping to pick up people on the side of the road, to the point where there are live ducks strapped to the roof because they cannot go in the bus with all the people anymore.
Then there are the bigger busses, which operate like collectivo's, but are proper bus sized. Bus schedules don't exist. They go when they feel that they have enough people in the bus. Bus stops are irrelevant. They stop when they want to (which, on my way to Pisac on Sunday, was every five minutes, for fifteen minutes, to see if they could pick up more people). This is the reason you can't ever count on anyone being on time.

This week was a little weird with the teaching days. Monday was the day of Urubamba, so the kids are usually off. However, because of the early closing they opened the school. They had classes like it was a Tuesday. On Tuesday there were classes like it was Wednesday, and on Wednesday everything went back to normal. I don't have class on Wednesdays so that meant two days off for me this week. Perfect opportunity to go check out some more ruins.

Monday both Rosy and I were back to school. She was still feeling a little weak, but luckily her very presence is all that's needed to shut the kids up. I had made a presentation about the Netherlands, so I presented it to the kids, and we had a little competition with questions to see if they understood what I had told them.

Tuesday we went to Chinchero. It took us a while to find each other though. Who knew that a town like Cusco, Peru had at least two Starbucks? I didn't. So miscommunication abound. In the end we made it to Chinchero though, and it was really good to see. Not as much hiking as in Pisac, but as my calves were still sore from Sunday, I didn't mind that. The ruins were on the top of a hill behind a little church. The church was filled with artwork, the ceiling painted, and gold everywhere. It was still very different from european churches. It was a little cluttered, and the gold wasn't cleaned as much as it could have been, so it was a little dull. We walked down from the church over the ruins. The nature around here is so pretty, and the mountains provide the most dramatic backdrop. We saw a little terraced valley, fields, cows, tons of sheep, and people in traditional Peruvian clothes going about their business. Another really cool thing was the way the mountains held back the rain. We could see a huge dark cloud just beyond the mountain, but we were standing in beautiful, sunny weather. And it stayed like that for a long time.

Yesterday we went to see Moray. These ruins are built like concentric circles going down the mountain. Unfortunately, there are no signs anywhere telling you what the site used to be or what it was used for. Pisac was quite obviously a village, but I have no idea what Chinchero and Moray were. Moray is a small site, but also a really nice one. Terraced, concentric circles, radiating out from a central point quite a way down. It almost looks like an amphitheater. It even has a little bit of the ear shape the Greeks used as well.

We were really lucky with the weather. Tuesday and Wednesday were sunny and warm, but today it's raining and cold. It's funny how quickly the weather changes.