Blogs from Machu Picchu, Cusco, Peru, South America - page 8

We arrived in Cusco early in the morning after a night bus from Arequipa. Unfortunately our room wasn't ready as it was only 6am. We wandered around Cusco and found a place for breakfast before sitting in the Plaza de Armas and people watching until a more respectable hour and we could check in. We walked up the hill to the Saqsayhuamán (sexywoman), an Inca site of both religious and military significance. Unfortunately only 20% of the original site remains as after the Spanish conquest they removed many of the stones and used them to build houses in Cusco. The majority of what is left is made out of huge stones that the Spanish probably couldn't move and were too big for house building. We booked onto the Inca Jungle Trek to make our way to ... read more

Die Zeit vergeht unglaublich schnell! Doch wird sind immer noch unterwegs und haben es nun auch geschafft einen weiteren Reisebericht zu veröffentlichen. Peru! Ein faszinierendes Land in der Mitte des Kontinents. Geprägt wurde das Land vor allem von den Inkas, welche zwischen dem 12 und dem 15 Jahrhundert in Peru herrschten. Diese Hochkultur erstreckte ihre Macht zwischen Ecuador und Chile aus und unzählige Ruinen aus dieser Zeit sind immer noch zu besichtigen. Leider ist die Landung der Spanischen Streitkräfte auch mit dem schnellen Ende der Inkas gleichzusetzen. Unzählige Städte und Tempel der Inkas wurden vernichtet und neue spanisch geprägte Städte gebaut. Als Zeichen der Unterdrückung und der Überlegenheit der Spanier wurden oft katholische Kathedralen direkt auf die Inkatempel gebaut!! Die wunderschöne Stadt Cuzco ist das beste Beispiel dazu. Beeindruckende Kathedralen und B... read more

I have been so busy over the last few weeks it seems hard to find the time to catch up on my blogs! Only a week to go hence I´m trying frantically to finish them now so I´m not writing them a month after I get back home haha. When I was in Cusco, I thought I was just going to get the train to Machu Picchu. When I heard how much it would be, I just thought it would be a waste of money to spend so much for just one day. I decided instead to find a trek. I knew the Inka Trail would be sold out as you have to book it months in advance so I started looking at other options. I talked to some people in my hostel and they told ... read more

May Full Moon The remains of Machu Picchu, the "Lost City of the Incas" are perched on the ridge separating Machu Picchu (Old Mountain) and Huayna Picchu (Young Mountain). Its stone agricultural terraces flow down the flanks and climb up the semi-tropical, cloud-forested mountains. Like so many other Incan ruins I'd visited, Machu Picchu fit organically in its site with temples growing out of the bedrock and connecting them with Pachamama, Mother Earth. I timed my visit with the full moon in May, near Buddha's birthday, and my time in Machu Picchu and my journey there were magical. Cusco is bursting with travel agencies offering a variety of fabulous, adventurous, though excruciatingly expensive, ways to reach the site. I took the road less traveled, and as Robert Frost said, that made all the difference. The Road ... read more

On my return from Puno I managed to get some sort of flu bug. The result being that I totally lost my voice and nearly a week later it still isn't right. I can only imagine how ticked off you all are that this didn't happen while I was at work and at home LOL! I did need the doctor though for antibiotics and a puffa so I would stop coughing all night, but nothing was going to stop me from doing Machu Picchu. He actually said that it would be a better environment up there rather than Cusco because of its dry air and pollution. I had to take a couple of days off work which was a bit annoying, but it allowed me to figure out some things that I could put together to ... read more