Sex, Drug´s and Rock & Roll!!

Well we arrived in Cusco this morning at about 8am, totally cream crackered after getting up at 4am!!
Lima was as busy at that time in a morning as it is during the day, all the street vendors work through the night and just cover themselves in a fusty old blanket, it´s a grim life.
The thing is they only sell stupid sweets and daft drinks, surely they can afford themselves a night off to sleep?
The car honking was as bad as ever last night so in the end we had to put our ear plugs in, it really was that bad, and we really did need to sleep to be up early.
The ear plugs are a Godsend and are very high on my list of "Glad I brought" things (obviously stilletos been number 1)
The flight was pretty straight forward, it was like an Easy Jet flight into Europe and we were on the plane less than an hour.
It was excellent flying over the Peruvian Mountains this morning as the sun came up, the sky was blood red, it was lovely.
The landing was a strange one, obviously we are really really high up here (more about that in a mo) and surrounded by mountains.
Normally when I´ve flown anywhere the plane start´s to descend and usually takes about 30-45 mins, well because Cusco is in a kind of valley the plane just kind of dropped out of the air and when we hit the run way we were still going at a fair old speed, so much so that I thought we would take off again at the other end!
Anyway it was a smooth landing.
So the altitude.. WOW!! (For anybody at Comet reading this, no I don´t mean week on week!!)
We knew it was going to be tough from our experience in Quito, and also the Rough Guide for Sth America that we have with us warns you about it too.
NOTHING could have prepared me for it, it was much more difficult than Quito and when we got into the restaurant after a walk of only a few 100 yards I thought I was going to collapse, I have never felt so ill.
It was like your worst hangover multiplied by a trillion!!
I was hot/cold, sweaty, clammy, couldn´t breathe and felt really nauseous, it took about 10 minutes to pass.
We are just ambling about now like a couple of old people because as soon as you start to exert yourself (even slightly) you just become really breathless and feel like your brain is going to explode!!
Nice ey??
It will take us a good couple of days to fully acclimatise, although Matt doesn´t seem to be struggling as much as I am.
The place, Cusco is great, it´s really clean and full of tourists from all over the world, so there´s lots of good pubs (The Cross Keys) and restaurants to choose from, although it is a bit pricey compared to the rest of Peru.
There is a restaurant next door to our hostal, and as soon as we got put of the taxi this morning on the menu I saw Guinea Pig!
It´s everywhere, luckily I haven´t seen any live ones in restaurant windows or anybody tucking into one, smothering it in tomato ketchup!
We have been given details of a trip to the Macchu Picchu already, and altitude permitting we are hoping to do it on Wednesday, we may need a couple more days though to get used to it.
So the sex drugs and rock & roll..
In Lima there is nothing that you cannot get on the street, we would be walking minding our own business and we would be approached by locals with a sign for the internet, when you tell them that you don´t want to use it, they ask you, "what you want, Grass, Drugs, you tell me what you want, I can get you ANYTHING"
We have also been handed (or should I say Matt has!!) various flyers for sex shops, God only knows why they´ve singled us out (no comments please, our parents read this blog ;-))
And then there´s the music, it´s all dodgy 80´s rock, apparently the Peruvians love it, Bonnie Tyler, Dire Straits etc.
Yesterday when we were talking to one of the locals he was asking where were from, what we do for a living (nothing) how old we were.
When I told him how old I was he was visibly shocked (he he) he could´t believe it as he was 35 (looked about 55) I didn´t have the heart to say to him "the reason I don´t look as old as you is because I don´t have to sell bottle openers to tourists every day"
I know it probably sounds harsh but that´s what he does day in day out, sell´s silly bottle openers for 10 sol (1.20GBP) and he will be very lucky to sell one a day!!
We really don´t know how lucky we are with our nice office jobs, A/C, staff canteen, internet, computers etc.
So that´s us for now, in Cusco for the next few days trying to catch our breath, we have a couple more weeks here (max) and then we will be crossing into Bolivia!!