Thinking of Adriana this morning, as she flew to Lima to be with her father, we met Senor Adriana – aka Francis – this morning.  What a delight to meet her “other half” –  handsome and impeccably dressed, his command of English was near perfect and we had a great morning with him.

 

 

We stepped outside the hotel to find this little group with a llama – would we like to take their photos?  No thanks…  Later in the day we came across them with a small herd of the things, leading them through the city offering to pose for a few soles.

 

 

Francis was taking us to show us the best inca remains in the city.  Just around the corner!

 

 

Here was a perfect inca street with a few colonial additions in places.

 

 

Oh look, there’s even one of yer actual incas standing there too!  (I don’t think so!)

 

 

We excused ourselves past groups of people having their photograph taken in front of the twelve sided stone and carried on up a little further.

 

 

But Adriana had warned her husband that I liked to learn a little about the people and that though my hero would be fascinated by every historical fact he’d care to share, I’d be easily distracted.  Well, wouldn’t you have been?

This lady was wearing a hat typical of the style of the women in the Titicaca region, Francis told me.  He also added that those plaits aren’t her hair but are made of black wool!

 

 

OK, here are another couple of “posers”, complete with lamb.  No thank you.

 

 

Right, come on Gill, time to focus!!

Another inca street, this time in between two structures and alongside a large archaeological excavation.  The walls here were so perfect, so high quality and the original street would have led to the convent of Santo Domingo.

 

 

Which happened to be where we were heading next, alongside this small boy carrying his valentine!

 

 

We looked around these lovely cloisters whilst Francis explained the importance of the building and pointed out some significant features.

 

 

Things like the small ridge on this inca-made building block, which was there to ensure accuracy when it was put in place.

 

 

The perfect proportions of this small passageway

 

 

where the 14-sided cornerstone  at the end was cut from a single piece of stone.

 

 

 

Once outside, we could see the rounded form of the inca altar clearly, too.

But oh, I’m sorry Francis, I can’t concentrate when I can see something interesting happening over there…

I’ll show you what it was in the next post!