Anyone get into the Starcraft II beta?

And God bless us, every one!

I have returned. I bring gifts.

wooo
back up and on a fancier server, not that you'd know it

Machu Pichu was pretty much exactly as you would expect from the pictures. To be honest, one of the most pleasurable aspects of my visit was the surrounding area - there are numerous treks around the forested mountains that can be completed in a couple of hours and make you feel like Indiana Jones following an ancient jungle trail. Trekking up a nearby mountain involves scaling several rather long, wooden ladders, which gets more interesting with the occasional creaking sound as you step on a rung or whenever you notice that the wood has rotted away around some of the nails.

In a slightly surreal experience, whilst I was actually inside the city of Machu Pichu, a group of five or so Peruvian girls asked me - I thought - to take a picture of them against the ruins. Naturally I agreed, only for it to transpire that what they actually wanted was a picture of themselves with me. I'm assuming that this was due to my height (which in South America makes me a fucking giant) rather than my stunning good looks. In another surreal experience, just this afternoon a man came up to me as I was sitting in the plaza smoking, said something about Russians and then walked away, angrily throwing his mobile phone into a fountain as he did so.

Ate a pleasant if overpriced meal in a restaurant in Cusco whose sound system was playing hotel lobby covers of various classics such as the Breakfast Club theme tune, "Like A Virgin" and "In The Air Tonight". If you're currently thinking that hotel lobbies rarely have drum sets you would be correct - it was a cover of "In The Air Tonight" without fucking drums.

I am back in Ica for now, just chilling out for a bit whilst I try and think of something to do for my last week.