Biking in the Andes

We got to Cusco yesterday morning at 7am, then slept for 5 hours, which we really needed. Cusco is a great town! We are staying in the San Blas area, which is the more artistic and muscial scene. All the streets are paved with cobblestone, there are scraggly dogs everywhere, and everyone wants to sell you something! (NO GRACIAS!!!)
Our first meal here was only 10 soles ($3.50) for a 3 course meal. We had ALPACA steak, it was pretty good. We also tried their pisco sour which James liked more than Hollie. (I don´t prefer egg whites in my drinks!)

This morning we met Erin and Pepe for breakfast at Yaku Mama in the main city square. We had delicious crepes and fresh fruit juice. Then we drove 1 1/2 hours with them and their interns to Urubamba where we got on mountain bikes and rode downhill for a couple hours toward the salt mines and the river. It was pretty intense downhill biking. (Dad- you would be proud!) The best part was when we got half way down and there was a man at a locked gate telling us that we had to pay to get past the gate (which Pepe said was never the case before), so we were going back and forth with this guy for at least 15 minutes about how we were not going to pay and he was insisting we must, until Erin decided to walk up to the gate and see if it was really locked, and it wasn´t, and when she opened the gate the guy gave up and let us through.

The bike ride was amazing, we were in the mountains outside of Cusco. Back in Cusco we had a nice dinner (no guinea pigs yet, we´re working up our courage) and a drink at an Irish Pub (the highest Irish Pub in the world, 10,738 feet) where we met some fellow Californians.
We leave for Machu Pichu on Friday, so we´ll write more when we return next week.
We´ll post pictures tomorrow when we are on a faster computer....