Kids in Cusco

We arrived in Ariquipa this morning at about 6am after 9 hours on the overnight bus (which I slept right through)
We have got a really nice hostal, just on the edge of the town centre, probably one of the nicest we´ve stayed in so far, we were watching Wimbledon this morning as we´ve got Cable TV!
It´s gorgeous weather here today, about 22c, but the night´s get quite cold apparently.

Thought I´d just tell you about the local lads in Cusco while I still remember.
There is a large square in the centre of Cusco where all the cafes. bars and restaurants are, so obviously this is where you find all the tourists.
We would usually sit in there at some point during the day and do a bit of people watching (as us Brits love to do!)
There are so many locals trying to sell you little souvenirs, jumpers, hats, scarves, tours, pictures, you name it, they´re trying to sell it, and then there´s the postcards and shoe shine!!
There are a group of lads around 10 years of age who come round (individually) and try to sell you postcards, they have a little box with them in.
The first thing they say is "you wanna buy postcard, it pay for my English education", well the first time you hear it you may be inclined to buy a postcard or two (unless like us you´d already bought em from a shop) so we just said "no gracias" (the only phrase you need to know in Cusco)
They then try to worm their way round you and say "where you from?" to which we reply England, they say "capital London".
Anyway this goes on and on and during the day there is no telling how many times you can be approached by these kids, so you can imagine it get´s a bit repetitive!
So we decided to be mean, and instead of saying we were from England, we upped the stakes a little and said were from Australia!! (as not many people know the capital of Oz, (do they??))
The first time we said it, the kid just shrugged and walked off, the 2nd time the kid knew, Canberra, he was quite a bit younger than the other kids too, probably about 8-9.
We were well impressed as even I hadn´t known until Matt had told me a few weeks previously.
So then we started quizzing him and asking him all the Capitals of the Sth American countries, the only one he struggled with was Uruguay.
We then asked him some European Countries and the little tyke got them all, he even knew the Spanish President!!
We bought a postcard from him even though we didn´t need one, he did push his luck though and tell us he would like a football, I don´t know if he was inferring he wanted us to buy him one or that he was trying to save for one!
Another thing you are bugged about is having your shoes polished!!
Well me and Matt being the tourists that we are get our flip flops on at every opportunity, so you would think that would take us out the frame.. oh no!!
They still ask you "you want shoes cleaning?" you look at them as if to say you can´t be serious and then they say to you "it is possible!!"
One of them even offered to polish Matt´s brown flip flops and make them black!!
There was also a youngish girl yesterday (about 15) trying to sell us hand knitted finger puppets!!
I mean come on what do we want with a couple of finger puppets!
To be fair they were good, she had a variety of designs, Superman, Shrek, a Llama, a mouse, a donkey (you get the picture!!)
She kept asking "why you no buy?", what were we supposed to say after she had asked us about 6 times!!, luckily somebody blew the whistle on her otherwise it could have got a bit unpleasant ;-)
There are some kind of guards patrolling the streets and squares, and if they think you are been harassed by these young kids they blow a whistle and the kids scarper!
It might not seem funny when you read this, it´s probably one of them you have to be there moments.
On Monday we are going on an overnight trip to the Colca Canyon, again it´s quite a long one which is why we are staying over rather than do it all in one day.
Including the trip and our overnight accommodation it has cost us just over 10GBP each, bargain!!
Arequipa is a lovely place (what bit we´ve seen of it) much nicer than Lima, although not as many Westerners and tourists as Cusco, which means that there is not much English spoken and all the menus are in Spanish (imagine going for a Chinese and the menu is in Chinese and Spanish!!)
There is quite a bit of car horn honking going on too which is unfortunate as I thought we´d got away from that now!
Luckily Arequipa is about 1000 metres lower than Cusco so it´s much easier to walk about and breathe, it is to be short lived though as one of the places we visit on Monday is over 4000 metres, GASP!!!