Altitude high Cuzco brought Tryna's blood oxygen level down again. For the fourth time, she donned the mask to breathe pure oxygen to bring her levels back up.

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The town square was colorful and surrounded by beautiful buildings

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The Cathedral of Santo Domingo, also known as Cuzco Cathedral, is the mother church of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Cuzco. The building was completed in 1654, almost a hundred years after construction began. It was built on the foundations and incorporated the remains of Corichancha, an Incan temple torn down by Spanish colonists. Both sections are visible at the back of the cathedral.

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Saqsaywaman is a walled complex on the northern outskirts of the city. The complex is, as many other Inca constructions, made of large polished dry-stone walls, each boulder carefully cut to fit together tightly without mortar. One has to wonder how they were able to lift these boulders that are estimated to weigh some 40 tons each!

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Our next stop was a church in the hills. On that particular day, there was a local protest being held against the education system. Evidently they attracted a large crowd by offering food and once there, the people seemed to get involved.

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I'm not sure if this local weaver was there for the protest or because she knew there would be tourists stopping. At any rate it was fun seeing and purchasing her work.

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Back in Cuzco we again found ourselves negotiating narrow, colorful streets.

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We were surprised to see this vicuna grazing within the walls of the old "Virgins of the Sun" dormitory. The vicuña is one of two wild South American camelids, along with the guanaco, which live in the high alpine areas of the Andes. It is a relative of the llama, and is now believed to share a wild ancestor with domesticated alpacas, which are raised for their fiber. Vicuñas produce small amounts of extremely fine wool, which is very expensive because the animal can only be shorn every 3 years.

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We were honored to be invited to lunch with a local family. They had prepared a multi-course meal for us that included...

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...guinea pig, a delicacy here in Peru. We found it didn't have a definite taste and that there really wasn't much meat on the bones. Some of the group refused to even try it!!

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One of the things that helps with altitude problems is coca tea which Tryna drank her share of. The other is sucking on coca leaves mixed with ash. Tryna bought some but never did try it - she gave it to the bus driver before leaving the country.

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