after a brief stopover in nasca and a very brief glimpse of the ever-so beautiful and mysterious nasca lines - no, i take that back, i refuse to perpetuate the hype. the nasca lines can be best described as old lines in sand. the tower allowed us to see a bit of two designs; there was supposed to be three but someone accidentally drove over the lizard. nasca was alright though, i had a hot dog in a hamburger bun with various other random things that you receive when you reply ´todo´ to what toppings. it cost me 1 sol, a bargain if i´ve ever seen one. next we were off to cusco, 3300 metres above sea level. the bus ride was 15 hours, so we opted to tackle it during the night - then we wouldn´t have to worry about accomodations. it sounded perfect - dinner, movies, breakfast, leather seats, toilet.. only we weren´t informed the toilet accepted just liquids. around 3am, the 1 sol hot dog burger was rotting in my stomach, and i needed a more capable toilet. i waited about half an hour, contemplating whether or not to ask to do, and more importantly, how to ask (no hablo mucho espanol). finally it became too much; i turned and asked, in the best spanish i could muster up, ´tienes papel para toilet?´ through her hand gestures and laughter i could understand that, although she had it, i couldn´t use is it in the bus for what i wanted to. as it were, luck was on my side - someone else had a similar problem and the bus was being stopped for him. the rest is too graphic and degrading to willfully recount.

right, and then i made it to cusco about 7 hours later. beautiful scenery on the way, fascinating architecture within. will post pics when i can. hopefully everyone can get over their various ailments and we get have a big night out in cusco.

100% el paca skullcap - 8 sols (maybe a sol or two too much, but i didn´t want to quibble as he´d already lowered it by 2)