Sacsayhuaman

Hey everyone - thanks for the comments!

This is a really quick post explaining Macchu Picchu...

Basically, we learnt a bit from our guide yesterday which I will try to summarise (he was very good but a tad longwinded). The capital of the inca (kings) empire amd quechua people was Cusco where I am now. When the Spanish came (1530s maybe) they conquered the incas pretty easily and then went onto colonialise a lot of south america.

There are a lot of inca remains around, including about 30 mins up a steep hill outside of Cusco, which is where we walked this morning. Lots of english people call this place ´sexy woman´(try and say it in the quechua).

The last fighting took place in S and after that the spanish went back to Cusco but no-one ever knew where the last inca went.... BUT in 1911 an explorer called Hiram Bingham went further into the jungle and discovered the remains of a total inca city on a mountain (Macchu picchu = old mountain). We are trekking there tomorrow - 4 days and 3 nights - through pretty hard terrain. Very exciting.

So we will be out of contact for a while but when we get back we will try and upload some photos (I look great in my hat and shorts...).

Nina x