Cusco...touristy town for a reason

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I arrived to Cusco from Lake Titicaca and my plan was to stay only a few days. I wanted to get to know the city, nearby Sacred Valley sites, do the Inca Trail to Machu Pichu, and then move on from the very touristy Cusco to the North of Peru where the gringo trail is not quite as crowded. However, as most backpackers experience, when you make a plan, things rarely end up that way. And that is one of my favorite parts of this type of travel...I have the time and freedom to change where I want to be and for how long.

When I arrived to Cusco in November, I met up with a girlfriend I had made in September in Medellin, Colombia. Her name is Courtney and she is a journalist from Sydney, Australia who left her job and came to Peru to volunteer for an NGO in Cusco. She loved it so much she decided to stay longer as a paid staff of the same NGO. We met in Medellin, and exchanged contact info knowing that we could meet up when I got to Cusco 2 months later. So we did! We had a great time hanging out for the first few days of my time in Cusco. She showed me around town...both at night and during the day. She gave me a tour of the NGO she worked for, called "Peru´s Challenge". With her help, I began to really feel the charm of the city, was inspired by the NGO, and loved hanging with Courtney and the other volunteers of the NGO as we went out most nights and enjoyed being girls out on the town of such an eclectic city.

So I decided to stay for a month in Cusco...volunteering with Peru´s Challenge a few times a week in the classroom teaching English or whatever they needed help with, taking daily private Spanish lessons for only $5 an hour, living with a home-stay family, and just hanging out with Courtney and the other girls in Cusco´s many yummy restaurants, live music bars, dancing clubs, and chocalate shops. It was such a great month!

Enjoy the pics!!!

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Photos

Cusco's main cathedral in the Central Plaza
No...that is not the Gay Pride flag...it is the Inca flag...looks just like it though! :)

Pisac Market
A beautiful weaving close up