Day 3: June 19

So we went down to the plaza again, and we were sitting on the bench. A little boy came up to us asking us to buy his artwork, about 2"x4" watercolor paintings in little mats. We had been asked so many times to buy something from somebody, it had gotten old. We had already decided to buy artwork from some reputable place, preferably a "one of a kind". At the time I was painting, and Temp was drawing local scenery. The little boy was interested. We struck up a conversation in Spanish about art and it turned out the little paintings he was selling were his! He was 11 years old and his name was Willy. He was attending art school, and raising money for his family with his paintings. He asked if he could paint something in my moleskine journal, of course I said yes! This was that one of a kind art I wanted! He ended painting 2. Many children surrounded us, including security officers and other art sellers, fascinated by his talent.

We walked around town as he told us stories. He wanted a painting by me, something from the U.S. since his paintings to me were of Peruvian locals. We had talked about our pets, so we agreed a painting of Sal would be perfect. As I was finishing my artwork, I used a Micron drawing pen for outlining, he was stoked on it. He tried it out and loved it. So I gave it to him as a gift along with my painting. He also gave me one of his paintings that he was trying to sell as a gift.

After that, we had to return to the hotel to leave for our Cuzco tour. We went to some ruins in Sacasayhuaman city dating before Egyptian pyramids, hiked a part of the Incan trail, went to a labyrinth where mummies are frozen and buried. And our last stop was at some farmer's shops where we bought authentic alpaca sweaters and winter caps.

This was Sacasayhuaman ruins where it is said they were built pre-Egyptian pyramids. No mortar was used in the building of these walls, each rock was specifically picked out for each location fitting together like puzzle pieces. Our guide mentioned that even animals are represented in the rock formations. Many of the walls and terraces seen in Peru were for agricultural purposes--terrace like architecture.