The world cup was finally over, Italy had beaten France – and the group had decided to to get into Cuzco at night …

Today we – once more – had an early morning – to be at the airport in time for our flight back to Cuzco – and another 2+ hours boat ride before that.

After our arrival in Cuzco the group more or less split into two parts – as could be expected for the day with the Worldcup finals. One part of the group went straight into a pub to watch the game, while the others enjoyed food at Jack’s, some last-minute sightseeing and the empty streets of Cuzco.

Today was the day, after we had made it back from the Inca Trail – so after a nice shower and a night of good sleep. All of us took it easy today and decided to just go for the organized tour through the Sacred Valley close to Cuzco.

Our first stop was at an Inca ruin in Ollantaytambo, followed by a visit of a Chicha brewery (Chicha is an alcoholic drink made from fermented corn – kind the local beer).

In the Chicha place we also had the chance to try playing Sapo, a local, traditional game played in bars. Goal is to throw a coin to a small table with holes, each hole represents points – the maximum number of points is given, when the coins lands in the mouth of a metal frog in the middle of this table. Of course we had to try this game.

After having had lunch, we left Pisac and stopped at a Llama/ Alpaca center. We have been shown the animals and the production process for llama and alpaca clothing. In the end we had the chance to buy some llama and alpaca goods at the highest prices I have seen in Peru (so a tourist trap – what else to expect).

On the way back to Cuzco we had another stop at the ruin site of Sacsaywaman.

A short flight had brought us from Arequipa (via Juliaca) to Cuzco in the late morning. Today was a special day – England was playing (and loosing) against Portugal in the soccer world cup.

Of course the English part of the group wanted to see this game. Good news was that we arrived in Cuzco in time – bad news that there was a parade and we ended up in a traffic jam… The longer we waited, the more the English guys turned impatient, finally they asked the driver to get off the bus to go on by foot, making their way through the parade.

Once we made it to the hotel, we met again for an orientation walk of town – for obvious reasons the English and Australian part of the group did not join in (the game was still on).

In the afternoon Merete, Aisling and myself did a trip through town with the tourist bus – with the highlight being the viewpoint from top of town.