Hello, everybody!

I hope you´ve been enjoying the earlier entries. this one´s going to be brief -- I´m meeting our guide for dinner in a few minutes. But you can stop worrying for the moment. I´ve had some delicious food, including alpaca, and nothing to make me sick yet. The flights were uneventful, I made some friends on the plane who stayed with me just in case, but I had no trouble finding my guide, Gustavo, who is very friendly and knows lots of good, interesting, and reliable restaurants.

We spent most of today on horseback visiting three ruins. My favorite was one with a perpetual fountain of water. Five hundred years old, and water still flows through one upper and two lower fountains, according to our local guide Jennine, the same amount year'round, and still no one knows the source. The stonework is, as advertised, impressive. I can´t help wishing I could see it intact, though.

The tour group is just me, Kristi, and man from Arizona named Daimon. So it´s easy to get along and choose extracurriculars together.

I havve not succumbed to many of the endless opportunities to buy textiles, cigarettes, finger-puppets, or other souvenirs, except once. I have bought bottled water and personal supplies successfully, and I´m finding my spanish stands up better than expected. ALthough my French failed me utterly when we found ourselves trotting and almost cantering alongside some Francophone tourists. (The boy proclaimed the canter ¨superbe!¨ which was comprehensible enough.)

One other note. I´m adjusting well enough to the altitude, but the scent of the air is still noticeable. It´s dry, sometimes eucalyptus, sometimes pepper, and some native herbs that add something unfamiliar.

OK. Off to dinner.

Lots of love,

Erica