10K, Cuzco, and MACHU PICCHU!

Last Sunday, I ran in the Nike Human Race, a 10K race that took place in about 25 cities around the world, including Lima. In Lima alone, 8,500 runners came together to run 6.2 miles through the city. The sun was out (a rare sight in Lima), making it a wonderful day to run. We started at Parque Kennedy in the district of Miraflores, ran around the district a bit and along the Malecon (the waterfront), and finally finished back at the park. I ran an even faster time than I expected at around 47 minutes (even with stopping for a potty break at kilometer 7), although my exact results never showed up online. It was an awesome experience and I'm hoping to run at least one more race in Peru.
The past week of school was relatively uneventful. I went to class and bought and began reading a book for my literature class called Corazon tan blanco by Javier Marias (have any of my Spanish speaking readers read or heard of it?).
On Thursday, we flew out of Lima very early in the morning for Cuzco. Cuzco is a city even higher in altitude than Huaraz, my previous travel destination. It was really difficult to try to adjust to that difference. Cuzco is without a doubt the biggest tourist destination city in Peru. It is absolutely gorgeous with its mix of Inca and colonial architecture and flavor. The first day we just relaxed and walked around a bit, checking out the artisan market where I found plenty of treasures and stopping to eat at a pizzeria/peruvian food restaurant where I ate some very unsatisfying lasagna (Italian food is very popular there for some reason...not sure if this is because of tourists' likes or Italians living there). I have come to realize that the tomato sauce here is just not up to par with the stuff we have back home. In the evening, we went to a concert/demonstration of traditional music. It was really interesting to see one man play about 20 instruments and to see how passionate he was about keeping this music alive.
That night, quite unfortunately, Aaron got really sick and was up all night because of it (as was I to take care of him). We skipped out on the next day's activity with the group. The rest of the group went to a bilingual school and hung out with kids for several hours. I was pretty disappointed to miss out on this, but was definitely not feeling up to it after no sleep. Aaron felt much better by that evening and we were able to venture out for some fresh air. I was a little sad not to be able to explore Cuzco as much as I might have, but I was just happy Aaron felt good for the next day.
Saturday was completely amazing. We woke up early yet again to take a bus to the city of Ollantaybamba where we took a train to Aguas Calientes, at the base of Machu Picchu. From there we took a 20 minute bus ride up the mountain side to the entrance of the cite. I could not believe how amazing and how mysterious it all was. Machu Picchu is an Inca ruin cite about which little is still known. It was discovered in 1911 by an American explorer. No one really knows exactly when it was built, how it was built, why it was in such a remote location, what it was for, or what happened to it. We took tons of pictures (I'll put some up soon, I promise!), which all look fake, because this place is something I've only seen on postcards and calendars. I was just in awe the whole time about being there. I feel so lucky to have had the chance to see it.
We were exhausted, sunburnt, and bug-bitten at the end of the day, but still had to take the long trip back to Cuzco. We arrived back in the city by 9:30 and went out to eat at a peruvian restaurant. After that, we wanted to go out and enjoy the city's famous night life, but ended up just passing out at the hotel. The next morning we got up and enjoyed a big buffet breakfast and then returned to Lima. It was quite an eventful weekend.