Blogs from Cusco, Cusco, Cusco, Peru, South America - page 2

After 17 hours of travelling and familiarizing ourselves with Tocumen International (Panama city), El Dorado (Bogota) and Jorge Chavez international (Lima) we made our destination at Alejandro Velasco Astete International (Cusco). We had read and been personally advised that embarking on this journey direct to Cusco, which sits at 3,500 metres, was not our wisest decision. Indeed 17 hours travelling is gruelling enough, attempting to sleep on the freezing floor of Lima airport during your 5 hour layover is also not ideal but when your nose starts bleeding uncontrollably because of altitude this is when you realise you may have made a mistake. We booked these flights some time ago and were so excited by the price we didn’t consider the rigours that the journey would have on us. Thankfully we survived and Helen’s 30 minute ... read more

Yep, just when I thought I had escaped the dreaded altitude sickness it hit me! Icky headache on day 3, which I thought was to do with not wearing my new hat while playing with the kids at the 3-4 yr olds project. Turns out that, combined with an a very unsettled stomach, lack of appetite and tiredness, I needed to slow down and rest. So that's what I did all yesterday and today felt much better. Walked into the main shopping area near our home and noticed how easily I lost my breath due to the altitude. Everyone says it will be fine in a few days so looking forward to that. The 4 British girls and I went into the Plaza de Armas on Monday night to be part of the huge festival that ... read more

Another Peruvian bus ride and another set of strikes to contend with. This time however, it was a little more straightforward and only ended up adding a couple of hours to our journey. After finally managing to negotiate the craziness we were faced with at Cuzco bus station, we eventually managed to grab a taxi to take us across town to our hostel; a 300 year old converted colonial mansion which was perched up on the hill overlooking the city centre. With three days until we were due to catch a flight to the jungle we actually found ourselves with a couple of much needed rest days on our hands. We used this time to stroll around the various sights of the picturesque city centre, relax and do a little planning for the coming weeks ahead. ... read more

Sunday 2nd February (Odyssey Day 86) Breakfast was at 0615 this morning and departure at 0700. It’s about 10 hours to Cusco apparently and the roads are open according to the bus station. We passed some beautiful scenery as we drove today. It rained on and off and some of the roads had mud or rock slides and a couple of places were being cleared and we had to wait our turn to go past. We were heading up into the mountains and for the first time in well over a month, the weather was expected to get cooler. I did manage to spot a stunningly beautiful metallic blue butterfly fluttering around one of the streams we stopped by though. I have never seen anything like it before. We stopped to buy our own lunch in ... read more

Cusco - Inkaernes by - Inkaernes vugge, Cusco betyder "navle"- I den gamle bydel er stort set alle de nuværende spanske bygninger bygget på fundamentet af inkaernes templer, paladser o.s.v Spanierne kom til byen omkring 1532 og startede der et omfattende nedrivningsarbejde. De lod dog langt de fleste steder, soklen stå og byggede således deres kolonibygninger ovenpå disse massive stenblokke som var ualmindelig fint udhugget og tilpasset. (det så vi også i Machu Picchu) Cusco ligger i 3300 meters højde og i de første par dage kunne vi nemt mærke at vi var kommet langt op, vi blev stakåndede når vi gik, at tale sammen samtidig med at vi gik var ikke en mulighed, og selv den mindste trappe gav forpustelse- det var en meget mærkelig følelse...der gik et par dage så havde vi heldigvis vænnet ... read more