Monday 9 April - Cuzco

Free day - nothing scheduled. Thus didn't leave the hotel until midday.

Had a look at Coricancha, a Spanish catholic cathedral built on top of Inca ruins after the Spanish came and took control of the town in the 15th century.

I suppose you get what you pay for in life, as a general rule. The meals here have been fantastic quality at a very low price (when considered in AUD), however Peru hasn't been the best place to get a quick sit-down meal. True to form, lunch arrived in front of us probably an hour after ordering. The same would happen at tea.

Tonight's feed was at a really cool bar called Mama Africa, which overlooks Cuzco's main square (Plaza de Armas). I'm sure all of us here have really loved the atmosphere in Cuzco, and in Peru for that matter. You don't feel threatened at all and the people are friendly and helpful. Unlike the US, there appears to be few ID checks. And the fact that I've been hooking into AUD $5 620ml Cervaza's can't be a bad thing either.

This is where the fun begins tonight. Libe was wearing her NY-bought Kenneth Cole flat shoes which provide as little grip on the sole as any shoe could possibly do. Couple this with a very slippery cobblestone road around the Plaza and, like me with raw fish, you've got a recipe for disaster.

I actually didn't see her fall; all I saw was Libe lying on her back, having hit the ground like the proverbial sack of spuds. She'd fallen on her back and her elbow, and made a fair thud in the process.

Within half a minute of having put our heads on pillows in the Inka's Dream Hostel, we'd (or should that read I'd) made the decision to head off to the hospital, via a short cab trip. Now I don't think that the Cuzco public hospital is the most comforting of places at the best of times, however approaching midnight on a Monday night in what probably were 3rd world facilities it really wasn't the ideal location for spending time on a vacation.

We think the two spanish GPs, one from either gender, might have been taking the piss out of the Aussies; whether or not they were will never be known due to our lack of handle with the Spanish dialect. We can't knock their efficiency though. Within an hour, we'd had an x-ray done and read for about 5 AUD, and were heading back to the hostel in a cab. The x-ray came back clear (we assume), despite Libe being a very sore girl.