Change of Plans

So today I went horse-backriding. But wait, Lauren, weren´t you supposed to go water rafting today? Why yes friends, yes I was but you´ve forgotten 2 important things
1. Im inPeru
2. Im dealing with Peruvians

So I wake up nice and early today and Im all ready formy 830 pick up.Standing around, waiting. Go sit in the office ofthe hostel. Chat with the very nice owner whose Irish and a little hard to understand sometimes. Wait some more. We call the tour place and they say ´5-10 minutes´. Half an hour goes by...we fill time by looking up dirty phrases in the Lonely Planet Spanish Phrasebook, which has phrases for everything let me tell you. We flip to the ´sex´portion of the book which I must admit was a bit immature/quite funny. My favourite phrase was ´Thats okay, Ill just finish myself off´. Im not lying people, if your in a Spanish speaking country and you need to say that to someone, Lonely Planet has got your back!
ANyways, now its 1015 and the guy from the tour agency walks into the office and apologises, but therewill be no rafting today. His reason? We couldnt tell, it was in very muddled English, although the rest of his english was quite good, funny that! So he offers me horse back riding to all of the ruins around Cusco which sounded quite nice, and it was really coldfor rafting anyways so I agree.

So we walk to themain square and he passes me off to some woman, who then passes me off to a different woman and her little child. Then we wait around in the square for quite awhile ´waitingfora cab´although there weretonnes of cabsdriving by. Finally get a cab, drive up to Sacsaywaman and she says, go explore for 30 minutes and then meet me back here.
30 minutes later she is nowhere to be found. Another random guys comes up to me and asks if I was the one for horses? Well yes I was, so we walk to his ranch like 5 minutes awayand finally im on a horse.

The actual riding was kind of awkwards because
A. I havent been on a horse in 6 years
B. There saddles and harnesses arent Western, Albertan type saddles and harnesses
andC. Im not actually wearing riding shoes so they keep slipping through the foot hold.

But all in all, I got back in the swing of things pretty quickly because at one time (6 years ago)I was quite decent (right Nadia?) and because it was just me and this guiide, I got to set the pace and didnt have to worry about anyone else. So we ran the horses alot. Went to 5 different ruin sites and it was supposed to take 3 hours, but since we ran somuch, we did itin 2. We passed tonnes of other big groups who were just walking the horses, which I could imagine would have been quite boring. So all in all it was good I didnt go rafting anyways.

I was going to walk back into town, but then it started pouring so I shared a cab with this other tourist, from Slovenia. Anytime IsayIm from Canada, Ive noticed that people are really proud of themselves for knowing the capital. Peruvians and foreigners alike. Heres a typical conversation.

THEM: ¨So, what part of the States are you from?´ (Do they not see my big Canada flag?)
ME: Actually Im from Canada
THEM: Oh Canada, capital Ottawa!

Unless they are from the States and then theconversation ismore like this

THEM: You must be from Canada
ME: Why do you say that?
THEM: The way you say out and about, its funny

Anyways, I kinda though I was being silly booking the Inca Trail back in January. But now I just smile as all these other tourists arrive here and are like, I want to go to Macchu Piccu. Well, the Inca Trail is booked solid until September, The train isbooked as well. So you can do other, longer, harder treks if you would like. No they would not like, but what can they do, they´re screwed.So I leave tommorow, back on Thursday and then moving on to Puno on Friday. In Puno I will see a big boat and some floating islands. Ive heard its nice. Then Im off to Bolivia. It´s actually is easy to get there by bus, so no worries that my plane ticket got cancelled. Andits much cheaper so, yay bus! Bye!