Malora gently rubs my arm as we both snore away on the plane to Cusco. We have been up for 24 hours straight and we are both exhausted. As I look through the window (past the Dutch women reading a book in Spanish) I can see the mountains that we are going to soon try to conquer. They look steep, formidable, and beautiful all at the same time. As the plane makes it’s way into Cusco I can see the stacked adobe shanty towns filled with stray dogs, hungry children, and smoking fires from breakfast preparation. Surrounded by mountains on all sides Cusco is an island of hope in the midst of ruins atop the mountains of the incas.

The only hope we have is that our bags are somewhere. In Cusco? In Lima? In Mexico City? Still in Calgary? We don’t really know. The only thing we do know is that we smell and feel disgusting. A friendly taxi driver helps us to locate the lost and found and we start the search for the bags in Cusco. We leave it in the hopefully capable hands of LAN airlines and head to our hotel. I will continue to call throughout the day without any luck of getting our bags. They are promised to arrive on Saturday morning, but we shall see.

After driving through the city minus any seat belts at breakneck speeds, in which we pass a meat market where the open carcasses of pigs, chickens, and other animals are proudly displayed, we arrive at the Hotel Ninos. A hotel who’s sole purpose is to help the street children of Cusco. They feed roughly 500 street children and offer education and a safe place to play. It has a comfortable courtyard with tables to enjoy Coca Tea or coffee and a variety of delicious breakfasts. We check into our room, Rosa, and are overwhelmed by how charming the room is. A comfortable bed, high rafted ceilings with a sun roof to allow natural light, a clean bathroom…this is heaven.

We lay on the bed and decide to take a nap before the airline calls to tell us that the bags have arrived. The airline eventually does call waking me from a much needed sleep to inform me that the bags wont be coming until tomorrow. I am tired, grumpy, smelly and inconsolable. I lay there with a pillow over my head cursing this God forsaken country and the people who live here, the airline, and pretty much everything about Peru and Mexico. I do this for about 30 minutes until I decide to join Malora in the courtyard. Grumpily I shower and come to the door as Malora is coming up from the courtyard. We decide to explore Cusco.

Cusco is a city where two cultures, the ancient Inca and the Catholic Spanish, are still smashing into each other like two alpacas having a spitting match (just trust me on that one). There are locals wearing the traditional Inca clothing and women with babies in colorful wraps on the their backs. Everywhere you turn there are ancient churches built on the sites of even ancienter Inca buildings. It is an amazing city and I can’t wait to explore more.

We decide to have some dinner in a restaurant over looking the Plaza de Armas which is the main center of town. I order a Cafe con Crema and when it comes and I have the first sip it brings tears to my eyes, literally. It is the best sip of coffee I have ever had. After a delicious dinner of hamburgers and Malora’s weird vegetable plate, a great conversation with some graduate students from San Francisco Art Institute on a photo tour of Peru, we head back to our room and attempt to fall asleep.

It has been a frustrating day and we need our sleep. After another cup of Coca Tea we fall asleep and dream of clean under wear.