Sicko

Last day in Peru: we had an interesting lunch, fried cuy (guinea pig) with potatoes and stuffed peppers. Couldn't help feeling a little guilty eating the critter, which are considered household pets in Finland, but hey, when in Rome... The taste was pretty close to chicken, the visual effect was, uhh, interesting (see photo).



After this we took a whirlwind tour of a couple of ruins close to Cuzco (Saqsaywaman, pronounced like "sexy woman", and Cen'qo). As we were short on time, we basically drove around the ruins and snapped photos. Felt very touristy, but you take what you can get.

After this we flew to Lima, waited at the airport for a leisurely 7 hours, and continued on a red-eye to Buenos Aires. After about 4 hours of sleep on the plane, we finally got to Argentina and hopped on a shuttle to our hostel, San Nicholas. The room is TINY, with barely enough room for two beds, and a shared unisex bathroom with the rest of the floor. And we're paying $40/night, which is a fortune compared to what I got used to in Quito, Lima, etc. At least the location is great, and the staff once again very helpful. I also got my first Hostelling International card in something like 3 years; just like the good ol' days :-)

One piece of bad news. After surviving for a week with just a couple of bouts of altitude sickness, both Santeri and I finally got sick for real. I have a fever, and take turns shivering in cold and sweating my a** off. Not sure if this was caused by the bugs that got a taste of us at Machu Picchu, or maybe the spirit of that cute guinea pig is getting its revenge from beyond the grave...
Hopefully the Advil will kick in soon - tonight we're going to take things real easy and maybe go check out the new Bond film after a quiet dinner.

Despite this setback, Buenos Aires looks like a really awesome city, with European style colonial architecture, and drivers who actually stick to one lane, stop at red lights and only honk when necessary. So, we're really looking forward to exploring more of Argentina, and will probably try to squeeze in a day trip by ferry to Colonia in Uruguay. Luckily we have five days here, so losing one day isn't a complete disaster.