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Published: January 25th 2006
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Cusco
One of the Cathedrals in Cusco. The city is the only in Peru to have two cathedrals. The other is on the right of the Cathedral The drive to Cusco was long, nearly 11 hours in total. The weather in Peru is pretty extrodinary, on the journey we saw snow in the mountains, hot sunshine, torrential rain, and even lightning. We finally reached the hotel in the City around 7.30pm. The hotel was very nice, and immediately I could tell that Cusco was a special place.
That night we met up with our guide Beatriz, who took us for a walk around the City. It was raining pretty hard, but around its cobbled streets, beautiful buildings, and surrounded by hills, lit up with surrounding villages in the night, a pretty awesome sight. Cusco was home to the Incan Empire. The Incans built the City in the shape of a Puma, an important Incan symbol. We had a walk, then went to an Irish Bar for a meal and a drink. The Irish Bar is the highest Irish Bar in the world ( 3,500 meters above sea level ! ). I was still feeling the altitude, so got home for midnight and caught up with some more sleep.
The next morning I booked myself to do an excursion to the Salt Terraces, and to see an
Me in Cusco!
Me in my new Cienciano FC shirt! The boy is a postcard seller, who followed me for ages around the town. Very common here for tourists. Cool shirt hey?!! And the hat! Incan site named Moray. We met our guides in the hotel at 9am. Of our group of 33 people, only myself and two others had booked to do the excursion ( most had got back to the hotel at 4am the night before ). Our two guides were both natives, Julio and Marco. It was a 45 minute journey to the Salt Terraces, and the drive gave good chance to get to know the main guide Julio. Julio is from Cusco, and immediately you could feel he was very passionate about his job, and very proud of his Incan ancestors. We got talking about football and various stuff, and got on well from the start. The Salt Terraces were very interesting. Basically a very salty stream that runs out of a mountain, the Incans built channels and pools for the water to populate. They then leave the water to evaporate, then extract the salt from the ground. The pools are still working today, and the Salt is transported by Donkey, and bagged up and sold in Cusco. All the Salt Terraces are owned by local families who live around the terraces.
We then drove to the Incan ruin of
The Salt Terraces
These are the Salt Terraces I visited with our guide Julio Moray, about 30 minutes away. The ruin is made up of these huge round raised stone circles, bulit in to a valley. Julio explained that the circles were a very early type of Greenhouse, where they would grow crops. This was an incredible achievement, as at around 3,500 meters above sea level, the crops they were growing were impossible to grow. Again at the site you could feel the Altitude, but by now I was starting to feel better. We left Moray to go back to Cusco. On the journey home, a lady in our group asked if it was possible to get a photograph of local people working in a field ( you see quite a lot of this, they use Cows to plough fields, and Donkeys to transport ). Julio was delighted to oblige, and we came across some local farmers in a field. Our driver Marco pulled over, and Julio ran over to ask if we could get some pictures. They agreed, so we jumpedout and snapped away. Julio told us as a gesture to give them some Sols ( Peru Currency, and very common as you tip just about everywhere, and is expected ). I joked that I didn´t have any change, and maybe I should help them plough the field to compensate for the photos. Julio immedialely thought this was a brilliant idea, so he asked them in Spanish, and the next thing they were all laughing and I was on my way to the middle of the muddy boggy field!!! The very old and tired looking farmer gave me his tool, he wasn´t even wearing any shoes, and with a very funny shaped Plough, he gave me a demonstration of how to Plough the field. As I ploughed away to the histerics of everyone by now, I was really getting in to it!!! It was so great to do this, and I felt so privileged that they let me interfere with their work, and at least I gave them some entertainment. Got some great photos of it, gave them a tip, and then we were back to Cusco.
Talking agin to my now new found friend Julio, I told him I wanted to buy a bizarre South American football shirt. He supports the City team Cienciano. They are a huge team around these parts ( 45,000 capacity stadium in Cusco ). After his stint of our guide had officially finished, he took me to a sports shop in town to find a Cienciano official shirt. Official is important, as lots of fake goods can be found in the touristy shops. Delighted as I made the purchase of the red home shirt of Cienciano, Julio made me wear it immediately from the shop, and the locals stared at me through the streets, a ´Gringo´ wearing the City´s pride and joy!
Today for me was the best day of the tour by far, the Salt Terraces and Moray were amazing, being away from all the group was great, and meeting Julio, and learning of his passion and knowledge for the Inca´s, and just for his sincere genorosity today was brilliant.
Julio was back in the hotel that night, as we had a group meeting about the Inca Trail this coming weekend, and I was pleased to hear that Julio was our main guide. That night we were to pack for the Inca trail, as the next day we were to go to the Sacred Valley, stay the night with a local family before starting the trail.
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Jordo
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Hello
I hope you bought a postcard off of the poor lad mate. good to hear from you. everything looks awsome.