Guest Blogger, Lisa Lazar Wertheim, to report on a day trip to Pisco

"OY, we just came back from another funny experience. We took the mini van recommended in Lonley Planet to a market in a city about one hour away. The minivan was practically empty when we got on and considered changing our assigned seat. We ended up staying in our seat that was assigned and for good reason! We leave and only five minutes later we stop where about 20 more Peruvians get on the bus. Five minutes later another five people, and so on and so on until the bus was so incredibly crammed up that a large woman is practically sitting on Carly´s lap since she is in the aisle seat. Thank god it wasn´t me. Anyway, she moved back further when more people got on then there was a 90 year old woman (at least she looked that old) who was the person leaning over Carly sitting on the hand rail. We discussed giving her the seat like civil people, then thought otherwise. We weren´t going anywhere. Those were precious seats!!! Again, my sneezing returned from the dust and smells. However the views were incredible overlooking the hillsides.

We landed in a city called Pisco where there was the famous local market. Wow, was it ever cool. We bought more stuff since it is all so fabulous getting our bargaining power down to perfection. Then a big wind came and the dust kicked up and the clouds began to look peril. Without lunch we decided to get the first taxi ( a splurge) back to town.

When we got to the area where there were taxis they were all hording around us to get our business. The one that I began talking with because he was most persistent ended up driving a little itty bitty blue car that I was too uncertain to get into. Then the woman said come here, join our taxi back to Cusco. We had read that it is very common to do that. We begin to climb into the taxi and see that there are already a mother and daughter in the back seat and a dog in the way back, with the father in the front seat. I say there isn´t enough room for us and she says of course there is! We squeeze in and the little girl makes way for us. We head down the hill squashed but feeling good about getting the heck down the hill before the rain set in. It ended up to be a fine ride right to our hotel.

We are back at our hotel where we were dreaming of taking a wonderful hot shower to rinse off the dirt of the market. The woman at the front desk then tells us that their hot water is not working, after hearing our conversation and it might go back on late tonight. Ugh. Carly is in the shower now and froze her ass off. Me, I am going to probably wait and hope for the best.

Our trip to Machu Picchu is tomorrow so we need to be very clean before we start our journey. Needless to say we are both a bit anxious about it."

-Lisa