Balcón del Diablo

 Today was Thanksgiving--obviously not observed in Peru, but Brett didn't have to work, so we went out for a little exploring of Cusco. We always felt like SOOO many people whenever we tried to walk somewhere in the city together.

Those of us who had had lunch at San Blas market took the others to eat there.

We decided to try some juice this time.

My favorite bill. :)

Delicious!

Then we went walking farther, looking for a place on the map.

I think she was telling Jethro we were going the wrong way.

Brett was impressed with these ruins right outside of Cusco, just there for anyone to come hang out on.

We quickly walked through these cave ones.  I think we were supposed to pay for these ones actually, but we accidentally took the trail from the exit in, so we didn't realize.

Then we went up by Sacsayhuaman (which we never went in because we never bought the boleta turistica, which was okay because we saw it from afar, and saw lots of other things).

And then, sadly, we got mad at the kids who were whining because they were hot and tired of walking (there are a lot of stairs in Cusco, it's true, and I think Hazel didn't feel good). So we finally got fed up and handed them the keys to the apartment and said- fine, go home. So it was just Brett, me, Orrin, and Talmage going on. But then I felt soo terrible later because we were pretty close to the place I wanted to go, and it was way cooler than I had imagined it to be!  And we saw an alpaca along the way.

Talmage talked about renting 4 wheelers to go up, because they were available, but we just walked (Brett said it wouldn't be fun anyway, because you have to stay slow with the guide). 

A house we passed:

I think we passed the trail at first, but then some old lady was guiding two young ladies and a little boy, and so we followed her, and that was very helpful. (Although, of course Brett said we would have absolutely gotten to the place anyway if we had continued following the map.) So this place is called El Balcón del Diablo (Devil's Balcony) (https://www.alltrails.com/trail/peru/cusco/balcon-del-diablo?search=true&u=i) and it has a cool cave, and rock formation, and a little -I don't know- kind of cove place. So we started from here-- where we started getting rejuvenated and very excited to explore this place.

and then went a little farther

and got to the cave. We walked through it--it's full of water, but not very deep, so you just have to step on the rocks.

So exciting!

It was pretty dark for just a second, and then you quickly go through and get the light from the other side.

See? So cool!!

Then you can come around and go up high, to the towards the top of the rock.

And this little place right here is what we think is the actual Devil's Balcony, because it's really steep and super high up, and you can see down to the river where the cave comes out to, but of course you can't really tell at all from the picture how high it is or how steep of a drop-off it was.

So we came back and walked back through the other way. 

#proofofmom

Then, instead of going back to the road we'd come up on, we just followed the creek through the brush all the way. Which was pretty great, because it required some jumping and just a little climbing here and there. 

It was so fun and exciting and we were having such a wonderful time! I really really felt sad that the other kids weren't with us. :( 

It's so crazy that there we were, just walking the streets of Cusco like it's no big thing!

Ducked into one of the cathedrals for a second because it happened to be open.

Got pollo a la brasa and fritas for dinner because it seemed very Thansgiving-ish. You know, chicken = turkey, and fries = mashed potatoes. :)  Just kidding, we just got it because it was quick.