july 4

hey everybody, Happy birthday to me. I am sorry I haven´t been emailing more, but I haven´t been keeping busy. I didn´t realize how sick the altitude had made me. it was a sickness I have never experienced, and doesn´t have strong signs like the flu. I can see how the mountain climbers could fool themselves into a false sense of security. I finally admitted it to myself. Combining altitude sickness with hagglers on the street is an accident waiting to happen which is why I left Arequipa. I am in Cusco now, and feeling much better although I am still short of breath at times. I saw a bunch of ruins the other day. The colective bus drove us (candian I meet at the hostal) up the hills of Cuzco and we walked down. We saw Tambomachey, Pukapukara, and the very impressive Saqsaywaman (pronounced= "sexy woman"). It is said, if Cusco is the Puma, Saqsaywaman ("sexy woman") is the head of the puma. The hugh stones in a zig-zag shape are the teeth of the puma at Saqsaywaman (¨"sexy woman"). The rocks were just amazing at this sight, and with their massize size its amazing to see them put together with such geometeric fluency. (does geometric fluency make sense ?) I was planning to go to Machu Pichu today, but with poor planning on my part it´ll have to wait for tomorrow. take care everybody,