Oh Look, the Herd is On the Move Again, Sire

Okay! So here I am, in Cusco, Peru, capital of the Inka empire and biggest tourist draw in Peru. I arrived last Sunday and spent the week until Huaro, the small town about 45 minutes away from the city. Conditions were pretty rustic out there-- we rented one room in a house for sleeping, eating, and lab work, with a separate bathroom downstairs-- but it was a good week of work and kind of refreshing to be away from it all! I was working on the skeletons excavated from a Wari (pre-inka empire/state cultural group) site in the valley and it was pretty interesting. Nice to have some comparison to my skeletal samples in Bolivia!

The neighboring town of Urcos (5minutes drive, 20-30minutes walk) is slightly bigger and the capital of the province and it had a big party one night celebrating its founding. We went and drank some beer in the town square with one of Maeve's Huaro friends and it was fun to see everyone dressed up, drinking, and dancing. There were two bands, the first of which was a classic South American pop group-- a full band and then 1 girl and 4 guys whose entire job seemed to be looking good and doing coordinated dance moves. For some reason, this really really amuses me and I mostly just stared at the band and laughed whenever they did a group spin, or, my favorite, a bunny hop/humping type maneuver.

We returned to Cusco yesterday, checked email, and then went out to another archaeological site on the other side of town, where two of Maeve's archaeologist friends are excavating. A really cool location-- great view of the valley and towering snowcapped peaks in the distance-- and the site was cool too- Wari, Late Intermediate and Inka occupations. There was also a cave up above that used to have burials in it (and probably still does under the collected rubble) that I climbed into. No one wants to excavated it currently because they are afraid of earthquakes and collapse but I think it would be great! (I'm also crazy though so that helps!)

Today is Inti Raymi, so the entire city of Cusco will be partying until... forever, haha. I'm going to witness the madness with a few archaeologist friends and then I think we are going watch some EuroCup games!