Lessons Learned in Cusco

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Today is another gorgous sunny day in Cusco. I am doing much better so we decide to go see the city´s sites. The main squares (there are three connected) plazas are bounded by massive churches. Which brings us to lesson number one, Peru is a Catholic country. Therefore, on Sunday, all churches are open for services not tourists. This generally leaves you with limited things to see in Cusco on a Sunday.

We sat down on a bench in one of the squares and tried to figure out what we would do instead. As a tourist, you stick out like a sore thumb. You are bombarded with individuals asking to you if you want to buy there art work, post cards, dolls, etc... To which, we always politely reply no gracias. We made one exception which brings us to lesson two: Keep saying no gracias. Two cute little boys came up and asked if we wanted a shoe shine, since we were wearing tennis shoes we said no gracias. They were not deterred and proceeded to ask us were we were from, and when we said the US, they proceeded to tell us all about our courtry (Washington is the capital, Bush is president, Clinton was last President, etc.). We were both impressed as they were quite young and had an impressive grasp of english. After talking with them for a little while, we were getting ready to leave and the one asked if he could have some money for lunch. Even though you know its a scam, it still about breaks your heart so Nate give the one some money saying as he hands it that he should share it with his friend. Lickity split, as soon as the one gets the money he takes off not sharing it with his friend. The friend starts chasing him and starts pummelling the other kid. We felt terrible. Here we started a little mini war that a cop had to break up. Nate and I slinked away after that. Stupid tourists.

We started walking back to the main square and were stopped by a large parade in the main square. Appartently, a major city event was talking place and there were tons of schools that marched and danced in the parade, official speeches, etc. It was a unexpected but neat to witness.

Still since nothing was open, we decided to walk up the hill above the city to see some Incan ruins called Sacsayhuman (pronounced sexy woman). We were so glad we did. These are increadible feets. The stones are so huge but fit perfectly together with no mortar. Our guide book said it took over 70 years for this to be built by slaves of the Incan empire and was the main plaza when the Spanish conqurered the area.

Lesson three: walking up hill plus high altitude make you out of breath. We both thought we were in decent shape (ie we both run alot). I could not go more than 20 feet without having to stop and take a break. Sucking a lot of wind.

After walking around the ruins, we headed back to town and decided to go to lunch again around the city center. Lesson 4: do not at any cost order gazpacho. I love gazpacho and was excited for it to be on the menu. I was expecting alot since there is a lot of Spanish influence. Not so much. Tasted like rotten tomatoes. Bad, Bad.

The last cool thing we saw as we were eating lunch was another parade. This one was a religious one. About 15 men were carring around a statute of the virgin mary followed by a band, and worshipers. This procession however was lead by about 30 dancers in traditional peruvian costumes that are derived from incan culture. Strange mix of Catholicism and ancient ways, but nonetheless interesting for us to see.

Tonite we have our orientation for our trail trip. We leave at 5:45AM tomorrow morning. We are both excited but a little worried after our less than stellar performance today walking up one hill. The first day of the trek is supposed to be easy to break you in with the second day being straight up hill. The third day will be a little easier, and the fourth we arrive in Machu Picchu. We will be out of pocket and not able to blog until we reach our hotel there.

I will update you all then on the camping, no showering experience.

Till then-- love you all Jess and Nate

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Comments

[Melissa]

Lesson 2.5, almost 3
Would suck to be a slave.