This morning after another yummy 1sole (20p) breakfast in Basilica and some facetiming with the family, Juliet and I headed into main Cusco with our shorts and teeshirts on, ready for the sun. We had a lot to do and first started off with visiting the restaurants that we’ve booked for my families arrival and made sure that everything was still booked (you never know with South America) and that they are expecting us. We then headed to Avenida del Sol with the intention of sitting out on the big grass area, underneath the temple of the sun and soaking up the actual sun… Until we saw the “stay off the grass sign…” So found a nice spot on a park bench with some freshly made juice and people watched massively, so intrigued by everyone’s ridiculous and obsessive amount of poses in front of the temple.

Then it was time to head back to the plaza and meet up with the professoras from El Kinder. We bumped into them by the fountain, right in the middle of the plaza, despite the huge crowds of people and massive school parades going on for Independence Day, and they took us to a chicken restaurant for a thank you meal. It was so lovely to be able to chat to them properly, get to know them and tell them how much we’ve enjoyed volunteering at their kindergarten. We had the biggest lunch of chicken, chips and salad, which was their treat as a way to say goodbye and thank you! We were not expecting it at all, we just thought we were having lunch because it was a day off and were very grateful.
After lunch Juliet and I went back into the plaza as it was a beautiful day and we haven’t actually been able to have a very necessary photo shoot in front of all the tourist attractions and beautiful architecture… So that’s exactly what we did!

On our way back to the house we passed an old man in an alley way playing the wooden pipes really well, he had a small red bucket in front of him with no money in and Juliet and I felt so bad for him. So we stopped in our tracks, went back, listened to him for a bit before giving him 2soles into his little box. As we were walking away we saw him take the money out of the box and into his pocket! Juliet said she was outraged, it was so funny! The old man had tricked us into thinking he’s not been given any money when actually he’s been pocketing it! We’ve both never given money to buskers before and won’t be again!
When we got to our laundry shop, there was a note on the door saying she was going our for thirty minutes, but no mention of the time she left and obviously (knowing our luck) we waited for thirty minutes before she returned… We’d just missed her. However, we collected all of our beautifully clean clothes and were so happy when we unpacked them all at the house… Until we saw the green tags, stapled into every item of clothing – and I mean every item, each sock, each pair of knickers, every single individual item… And it took us about an hour to unpick them all!! Then we did our daily work out, until Juliet got bored and practised her disguise for when she meets her family so they don’t recognise her. It was absolutely hilarious and we both practically wet ourselves laughing until it was time for dinner, and here we are! Our last vegetable sandwich of our trip – how emotional.