cuzco

by mikka


Hello from 11,200 feet! 




We left our hotel in Lima at 3:30 in the morning, in time to catch an early morning flight to Cuzco, where - we learned upon arriving - we couldn't actually check into our hostel room for several hours, which meant we never managed to take a proper nap until we fell asleep around ten that night. With about two and a half hours of sleep keeping us going, we didn't get up to much, though fortunately, it's nice just wandering aimlessly around Cuzco. It is unbelievably pretty here, so please excuse the high volume of photos...



At first, we intended to do a lot more sightseeing today and tomorrow, before we head off to Ollantaytambo; but it turns out, unless we're reading our guidebook totally wrong (possible), that most of the major sights in the area can only be accessed by one expensive ticket that expires after ten days.  We only have two days here, and then start our volunteer work, so we decided to wait for now and see the big sights on our way back - it just seemed too rushed otherwise. So instead, today we just randomly climbed a hill to take in the views.


Midway through our climb, people in costumes started descending the hill in droves - I think we definitely missed something, but am not too sure what, exactly.


After that, we wandered through an alley with massive stones that had been built by the Incas:






Walking around a lot - particularly up hills - makes you pretty aware of the thinner air, though we're not feeling the effects of the altitude too badly. We still used this as an excuse to try this, however:


Coco tea, made from coco leaves (duh), which tastes nice, a bit like artichoke tea, and purportedly cures altitude sickness. 


So anyway, hello from touristy, pretty Cuzco! I posted a million photos here hoping that you'd be able to get a sense of how beautiful the town is, but I don't think they begin to do it justice.