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Published: January 16th 2011
So we arrived in Cuzco around 11:00 a.m. and found a great hostel a little bit up on the hill. Cuzco is really neat and a lot of their streets are actually just stairs. Which with the thin air of the high altitude, a large backback, and me out of shape, saw me show up at the door to the hostel and barely able to get two words out. Thankfully Amy is better at Spanish, and apparently more fit! After we dropped off our stuff we went exploring and had some lunch. Amy, Warrior Princess, finally started to feel the effects of the altitude and felt a bit drunk when we were eating lunch. So we both decided that we would take the advice of our previous hostel owner and rest and eat small meals and just take it easy for a few days. After we napped we were going to go out and cruise around some more since Amy was feeling better but it started to rain. Since it is the rainy season it rains every afternoon. Unfortunately my shampoo exploded on my rain coat on the bus so I stayed back and washed the soap out while Amy explored
and went grocery shopping since the hostel has a kitchen.
The next day we decided to do a walking tour that was in the Lonely Planet book. We made it about halfway through before we found the market which was the coolest place ever. It had everything, the standard Peruvian handicraft area (sweaters, pants, wool toques etc.) and then it had about a dozen other dedicated aisles all themed for food. There was the meat section with whole pigs and plucked chickens, then the bread aisle, the seafood aisle, the spice aisle, the veggie aisle and so on. They had a huge seciton in the back that was like a food court with all these small restaurants where you could get lunch. There was also the juice aisle where they had about 20 women with blenders and mountains of fruit and you just pick whatever you want and they blend it up right there. I was sad we had just had breakfast.
After spending some time, and money, in the market, we walked around some more and found a small travel agency where we planned to ask about doing the Sacred Valley and seeing some of the ruins
there (it is the river valley between Cuzco and Ollantaytambo where the Machu Picchu trek start). So we booked an all-day bus trip so we could do it all in one day and also a horseback riding trip for the day after. We then spent the afternoon trying to find the trek operators for our Machu Picchu Trek (sorry Amy my map skills are horrible). We finally tracked them down and their VISA machine was not working and they wanted US cash only, which is a pain to get.
Then it was my birthday! We went and jumped on a bus to go out through the Sacred Valley where we saw a lot of ruins, some neat towns and some amazing scenery. There was a lot of hiking around which hopefully will help me not die on the Inca Trail which we start on the 17th. We learned a lot about the ancient Incan cultures and how the Spanish influenced a lot of their history (of course). All in all it was a great day. We met a really nice family from Lima whose daughter was about our age and spoke English really well, so we hung out with
them mostly. In any case the ruins were all pretty incredible and the engineering abilities of the Incans were pretty amazing all things considered. It was funny because a lot of the ruins and the decorations on things were nothing like the Disney movie Emperors New groove. There were of course similarities, but there was a lot lost in translation I think (that is for Laura).
I also learned that I have been spelling Nazca and Cuzco wrong. Those are the European ways of spelling them, but it should be Cusco and Nasca which is how the Peruvians spell it.
So today we went going horseback riding through some more ruins. Before we even got on the horses I was trying to duck under a fence railing and with my baseball hat on totally mashed my face, so now my nose is actually bruised. Horseback riding was really cool, except I felt kind of sorry for the horse because it was rather small and hauled me up a pretty large hill.We saw some more ruins from the Incan civilization and then rode back down. They dropped us off at the top of the hill above Cusco so we
walked down to the City to our hostel, where I bailed on a curb in front of a bus of tourists. What is really surprising is this is the first time I have bailed! And Amy thinks she can teach me to dance gracefully... HA!
Anyways, tomorrow we leave to go on a 4-day trek along the Inca Trail which ends at Machu Picchu.
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Judy West
non-member comment
same dance...different song
What is it with Lushs' and horses? Your nose, Jason's leg, exotic locations...go figure!