Cusco (also spelled Cuzco, and in the native Quechua language as Qusqu IPA: ['qos.qo]) is a city in southeastern Peru, near the Urubamba Valley (Sacred Valley) of the Andes mountain range.
It is the capital of the Cusco Region as well as the Cusco Province. The city has a population of about 300,000, triple the population it contained just 20 years ago.
The altitude of the city, located on the eastern end of the Knot of Cusco, is around 3,500 m (11,500 feet). The historic capital of the sun-worshiping Inca empire, it was found in 2006 to be the spot on Earth with the highest ultraviolet light level.
cusco was a very very long bus ride from nazca.we left about 8.45pm and arrived in cusco around 11.30am the next day.
the buses arent too bad really - they serve you not quite airline food and you can kind of lie down (plus you can buy 10 valium for 7 soles and they help too).
we showered and changed and went out for a bit of a wander.
we came across charlie and staurt (who we met in huacachina) and made a date for the rugby semi final the next day. we also tour shopped around to see the best and cheapest way for us to get to macchu picchu and back. HINT : take buses and trains and go it alone - it was about half the tour price.
our first night we seemed to have a craving for fast food but the man from the hostel pointed us across the street for pollo and papas fritas (broasted chicken and chips) and combined with the warm cerveza, we sat in our room watching cable tv.
saturday was the first rugby semi final between england and france.
nell and i arrived at paddys early and scored a table and not long after, jason and amy arrived from their 15 hour bus ride and then charlie and stuart showed up. the result (apart from england kicking france) was 6 slightly tiddly turisticos and one very very loud one - stuart.
nell led us on a search for curry. but we didnt find it. so we tried alpaca instead.
sunday was the second semi final between south africa and argentina.we got up early for a stroll around and came across a religious procession. what we understand is that a slave in lima painted a perfect christ on a wall. the building was then destroyed but the wall remained. so a celebration of this happens each year.
we walked into the plaza de armas and came across a procession of another kind.hundreds of sick children, well children, doctors and nurses and the military were all lined up and parading past some officials. 
we watched for ages and then found an upstairs cafe where we got an even better view of what was happening.after the parade, it was rugby time. we tried a different pub this time - and nell offered to pay if south africa won.
so after a jug of cuba libres, nell paid up and then ran off to call her dad.
me thinks we should have paid but free is free !
we met up with jeremy warne that night and went to dinner with jason and amy before they took off on their inca trail.
monday saw us ready to catch the bus to ollaytaytambo and then the train to aguas calientes
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