We had a free day today so we wandered round and took a few photos of Cuzco. It is actually quite a nice town, despite being infested with tourist shops. There are enough places and quiet streets to be able to imagine being there a couple of hundred years ago. Many of the buildings still have Inca foundations with the colonial white plaster walls built on top, and almsot all of the streets are cobbled. At about lunchtime every single restaurant sends someone out to accost passers-by and the rest of the time it's people selling postcards or paintings or finger puppets or offering tours.

We stocked up on a few essentials for the Inca trail (12 chocolate bars, coca sweets, llama socks) and went to the Inca museum. This was another nicely put together exhibition, and we were pounced on immediately by an English-speaking guide, who knew her stuff, but rushed through things. Much of what she said was another version of the things that we'd heard for the last couple of days, but some of it was new. I liked the real mummies and the deformed skulls best. But then, I would.

We had supper in a touristy Peruvian-style place and went back to sort out our bags for the trip tomorrow. I had to repack three times as things didn't fit, and I ended up leaving things out. We were told that sleeping bags would be provided, but because we'd much rather sleep in our own, we took those too. I think we were both pretty nervous about it all, and tried to get an early night, but I didn't sleep too well.