In case anyone was suffering from the illusion that Cusco is this quaint little village in the mountains, let me shatter that myth. Cusco is a booming city of 500 000 people devoted mainly to tourism and in particular getting people to Machu Picchu. We have spent our time in the Incan section of the city which is obviously the historic centre. The city then sprawls well down the valley and up into the mountains in all directions.
We started off the day with a walk back up into the city centre. Day two of thin air was much better, with very few symptoms of the the air deprivation we had yesterday. We noted many more women in authentic outfit/costume, so I’ll share few of those with you.
When we reached Plaza de Aramas, where we’d been yesterday, we headed away from it towards the Santa Clara Arch.
Once through that, we discovered the local’s market, San Pedro. Even though the initial odours were a little over whelming, we walked through it noting its many areas like the bread seller, the pork sellers - no ice here - and the, well, innard sellers - no ice here either. What a colourful place.
We walked back to the main square to take a closer look at the statue in its centre. This is the most important Inca King Tupac Amaru ll, who was beheaded here.
Walking back to the hotel we came upon many ethnic girls with their alpacs looking for photo ops. Of course, these don’t come without a price, but heh, Dawn with an alpaca isn’t something you see every day. More alpaca pictures to follow.
The varied balconies in the old town continued to amaze.
After lunch and slow time for Dawn, we met our tour for the afternoon. Our guide chose to take us to the highest point of the tour first, around 3800 metres. Of the 9 people with us on this tour, one fellow had just flown up from Lima. Fortunately, he was fairly young and so did OK. The first stop was at Sexy Woman, well that’s what it sounds like - seriously - spelled Saqsaywaman. This was the ruins of an Incan temple overlooking Cusco. We couldn’t get on to the site without the obligatory visit to the alpacas.
What we saw here were the foundations of what would have been impressive buildings destroyed by the Spanish. Yeh, rock is rock, but you have to marvel at the fit of each rock that the Incas achieved with crude tools.
Like I said, being up so high gave us some fabulous looks at the upper town of Cusco, where the old town is located.
We next visited a ruin that was the former mummification centre for the Incas. We felt the stone on which they did their work and to this day it is still cold as ice, so this cavern proved that they preserved verses mummified.
Our final high visit was to former springs of the Incas at Tambomachay. They created channels and catchments that are still operational today.
On the way back down to Cusco, we visited a handicraft store that encourages development of skills among the poor and returns a high percentage of the proceeds to them. We came away with a couple of pricey souvenirs. We also got a demonstration of weaving and dying skills.
Once back in Cusco, we visited the archeological museum called Korincancha. What they did here was basically build a museum over some excellent Inca ruins. Once again, it’s all stone, but the lines and symmetry were fabulous.
Part of the museum grounds include the Solar Gardens we’d been spying on our walks past for the last two days. They have only recently been unearthed and contain some original and still operational fountains. Here, we also discovered the national flower of Peru - not sure what it’s called.
A guide is really helpful to point out what the normal eye overlooks. For example, we’d been passing Inca ruins that had been built upon all through town and would have never recognized it without this tour.
We finished out tour inside La Catedral or the Basilica as locals call it. No photos were allowed, but I can tell you the interior was yet one more example of opulence and misguided priorities in an essentially poor country like Peru. As we emerged from the Basilica, the sun had set, so we got a good look at Plaza de Armas under lights.
Back at the hotel we sampled the national drink, the pisca sour. It was very good and only slightly potent. For dinner - once again in our hotel dining room shown in the photo below - we shared two Peruvian specialities, ceviche, which is like a fish tartar or gravlax - excellent, hardly knew it was fish. Then we shared a beef dish with tomatoes and onions, which was equally good.
The hotel has several courtyards around which rooms are built. Here’s a view of our courtyard, with our room being near the bottom corner.
Tomorrow we’re off to the Sacred Valley.
We started off the day with a walk back up into the city centre. Day two of thin air was much better, with very few symptoms of the the air deprivation we had yesterday. We noted many more women in authentic outfit/costume, so I’ll share few of those with you.
When we reached Plaza de Aramas, where we’d been yesterday, we headed away from it towards the Santa Clara Arch.
Once through that, we discovered the local’s market, San Pedro. Even though the initial odours were a little over whelming, we walked through it noting its many areas like the bread seller, the pork sellers - no ice here - and the, well, innard sellers - no ice here either. What a colourful place.
We walked back to the main square to take a closer look at the statue in its centre. This is the most important Inca King Tupac Amaru ll, who was beheaded here.
Walking back to the hotel we came upon many ethnic girls with their alpacs looking for photo ops. Of course, these don’t come without a price, but heh, Dawn with an alpaca isn’t something you see every day. More alpaca pictures to follow.
The varied balconies in the old town continued to amaze.
After lunch and slow time for Dawn, we met our tour for the afternoon. Our guide chose to take us to the highest point of the tour first, around 3800 metres. Of the 9 people with us on this tour, one fellow had just flown up from Lima. Fortunately, he was fairly young and so did OK. The first stop was at Sexy Woman, well that’s what it sounds like - seriously - spelled Saqsaywaman. This was the ruins of an Incan temple overlooking Cusco. We couldn’t get on to the site without the obligatory visit to the alpacas.
What we saw here were the foundations of what would have been impressive buildings destroyed by the Spanish. Yeh, rock is rock, but you have to marvel at the fit of each rock that the Incas achieved with crude tools.
Like I said, being up so high gave us some fabulous looks at the upper town of Cusco, where the old town is located.
We next visited a ruin that was the former mummification centre for the Incas. We felt the stone on which they did their work and to this day it is still cold as ice, so this cavern proved that they preserved verses mummified.
Our final high visit was to former springs of the Incas at Tambomachay. They created channels and catchments that are still operational today.
On the way back down to Cusco, we visited a handicraft store that encourages development of skills among the poor and returns a high percentage of the proceeds to them. We came away with a couple of pricey souvenirs. We also got a demonstration of weaving and dying skills.
Once back in Cusco, we visited the archeological museum called Korincancha. What they did here was basically build a museum over some excellent Inca ruins. Once again, it’s all stone, but the lines and symmetry were fabulous.
Part of the museum grounds include the Solar Gardens we’d been spying on our walks past for the last two days. They have only recently been unearthed and contain some original and still operational fountains. Here, we also discovered the national flower of Peru - not sure what it’s called.
A guide is really helpful to point out what the normal eye overlooks. For example, we’d been passing Inca ruins that had been built upon all through town and would have never recognized it without this tour.
We finished out tour inside La Catedral or the Basilica as locals call it. No photos were allowed, but I can tell you the interior was yet one more example of opulence and misguided priorities in an essentially poor country like Peru. As we emerged from the Basilica, the sun had set, so we got a good look at Plaza de Armas under lights.
Back at the hotel we sampled the national drink, the pisca sour. It was very good and only slightly potent. For dinner - once again in our hotel dining room shown in the photo below - we shared two Peruvian specialities, ceviche, which is like a fish tartar or gravlax - excellent, hardly knew it was fish. Then we shared a beef dish with tomatoes and onions, which was equally good.
The hotel has several courtyards around which rooms are built. Here’s a view of our courtyard, with our room being near the bottom corner.
Tomorrow we’re off to the Sacred Valley.
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