I heart Cusco

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Back to Cusco, my Peruvian home from home. I was here before the Lares Trek too and loved it.

It's a beautiful city that was the Inca capital in the past with beautiful golden buildings which were later turned into churches and Cathedrals by the Spanish after they stole all of the gold. A stunning town square, fountains, hills, mountains, Inca ruins, great food, coffee shops, art and markets everywhere.

I was so pleased to be back to my new favourite Peruvian city. Started the day with seeing more Inca ruins around Cusco such as the lookout and the cemetary. It was weird in the cemetary because they buried the bodies in the rocks and we were allowed to go inside the rocks and look and around.

In the afternoon, a few of us went to the Jewellery factory where they make most of the jewellery for Cusco. The owner walked us around and showed us each step of how the jewellery is made. My favourite parts were seeing the rocks in their natural form and then seeing how much detail they put into shaping the different designs. After watching how it was made, we were taking to the shop! I wanted to buy everything but managed to narrow it down to one ring in the colours of the multi-coloured Cusco flag and a silver bracelet made of Inca crosses filled with Peruvian turquoise.

After that we went to the 'Temple of the Sun' convent which was beautiful. Lots of old paintings and furniture and the even the designs in the walls were incredible!

The next day we were supposed to be going white water rafting which was unfortunately cancelled due to a strike and the funeral of an important religious man. It was interesting to see the strike with everyone marching around the square chanting and banging drums. It was a nice free day where I just caught up with lots of stuff that I felt I needed to do and also caught up on my taking photos of Dennis!

Off to Puno on the bus tomorrow on a 7 hour bus journey and then get to visit the islands in lake Titicaca.

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