And by mañana, I meant when I felt like it...

So, Mike and I have had some epic days here... some highlights:

(By the way, there may be some grammatical errors and confusing thoughts here. I can explain, I swear. First, almost every keyboard I use here has keys with the letters rubbed off, and the keyboards themselves are different, so misspellings might be abundant. And the number keys have two additional symbols and I can´t figure out how to get to the second one. Second, my brain hurts. Not from altitude, but from translating for Mike. I´m not complaining, but after a few day-long tours, I´m just... burnt out. He´s been a sweetheart about it though. At the beginning of tours I explain things very thoroughly, by the end, I summarize:

Erica: He said these ruins are 1000 years old.
Mike: That´s all he said? He spoke for a few minutes.
Erica: Yup, that was the most important part. :)

So, back to the highlights...

• Museo de Coca (Liz, I highly recommend you go here! It was fascintaing!)
  

We went to this museum about the history of the coca leaf. Basically, it´s been used for centuries as a supplement that takes away hunger, pain, and cold. It´s sacred to the people here now, as it has been for centuries. The guide showed us art (clay figurines) of ancient people with bulges on the side of their mouths, from holding the coca leaves there. He showed us mummies of sacrificed children, with their offerings, including corn and coca leafs. He showed us different tools used to ingest coca, as well as these ashy products made from burnt quinoa that were used along with coca to enhance its effects.
It wasn´t until the middle 1800s that western doctors explored the uses of the coca. The leaf is pretty complete, with vitamins, minerals, and amino acids (who knew!) and it was after that, when a German scientist (whose name I can´t remember) isolated the chemical cocaine out of the leaf, that it was used in Western medicine. He showed us evidence of Freud´s RIDICULOUS use of cocaine and how he would treat patients with it. It wasn´t until it was proven addictive that it became illegal, even though it´s medicinal uses were plenty.
Then we learned about the drug-trafficiking of cocaine, how it´s made (pretty nasty, and pollutive: during the process, which usually takes place far in the jungle, the makers toss all the byproducts, which include kerosene?!) and what the government does to rid these people of their crops. The US sprays the land and pretty much kills everything in it´s path, including wildlife and other plants, as well as making the water in the rivers unpotable. He showed us some children´s artwork that shows before /after pictures of the land. Next, he explained that there are movements to industrialize the use of the coca leaf, not cocaine itself, in "energy" drinks, foods, sodas, beers, etc. (There are stores that stell this stuff, like chocolate and caramels. I wanted to like them, but they´re pretty gross tasting, I have to admit.)
Finally, he showed us what happens when people abuse cocaine (not coca leaves) and had pictures of famous people who clearly had gone overboard with the drug; Diego Maradona, Amy Winehouse (is she really that well known in South America? I guess...) and Freddie Mercury. In fact, he had posted one of the last poems that Freddie Mercury wrote and it was an ode to cocaine, lamenting how his love for her cost him his friends, his family and his life. Que fuerte!

• La Valle Sagrada

We went on a tour of a few towns around the Urubamba valley known as the sacred valley. (Urubamba is the river that flows and connects Cusco, tother smaller towns and finally Machu Picchu. There are Incan and pre-Incan ruins in these towns. It´s sort of hard to explain without the pictures, but let´s say there are huge monolithic constructions with rocks that seem like they would be impossible to move, let alone stack on top of each other. And they did it all without mortar, it´s just rock on rock, and they fit perfectly. It´s like tetris except there are more than four shapes, and no joystick.
Needless to say, my favorite part was when we went to the last town of Chinchero and an Incan descendant showed us how they clean and prepare alpaca wool to spin and dye it into yarn!!!! They use all natural products (roots) to clean it and different seeds and leaves to dye the wool. To get the color red, they use insects. Insects!!!! I dare say that no one was as enraptured as I was during this part of the tour.

Right now, Mike and I are in a cafe in Aguascalientes, a jumping off point to get to Machu Picchu, which we will go to (very) early tomorrow. Tomorrow evening we return to Cusco by train, and spend our last night together before he leaves for Lima, and before I go somewhere else (still haven´t decided where). The next time I post, I´ll probably be on my own. Remind me to tell you about the day we hiked with the shaman and did cleansing ceremonies in the campo (countryside). That´s a story that deserves a post of its own...

Hasta luego!