Today we had planned to visit some more ruins to the South East of Cusco, however the rumours we had heard of a major protest happening today turned out to be true. The protest was city wide and had plenty of businesses closed for the day including all public transport in and out of Cusco. So anyones plans of doing any independent trips outside of Cusco today were thrown out the window including ours. We were just glad we had already been to Machu Picchu unlike some other poor sods trying to get there today.
The protest was massive and seemed to envelope all of the main areas of Cusco with chanting, singing and dancing crowds setting off fireworks and crackers as well as setting several small fires. The protest was mainly a demonstration (for or against?) the South Peruvian Gasoducto, and the Chinchero International Airport. Other groups who wanted to be heard also seemed to join in attempting to raise awareness for their own causes.
The protests will be continuing until tomorrow which meant we were unfortunately forced to book in an excursion with a tour agency to see the salt mines and massive Moray archeological site tomorrow before getting a night bus to Punyo.
