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Published: December 9th 2008
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We arrived in Cusco bright and early after another delicious night bus. The hostel turned out to be great and although it was a little bit of a walk outside the centre we had all our creature comforts which makes for a rather pleasant stay, especially when you´re looking to recharge your batteries, as we were
Cusco was the heart of the old Incan empire and this colonial city´s foundations are the ruins of so many ancient buildings. This place has so much history and I made sure to drag Vicki around with me to all of the main attractions
The day we arrived we chilled out for a spell, recovering from our trip before we tipped out and about the city to see what it had to offer. Luckily for us, there was a lot. Wouldn´t you know it though, we ended up in a boozer but not just any boozer...the highest Irish owned boozer in the world (Guinness book of records PENDING). The next day we got all cultural and went to the town´s national religious art museum. Bit of a let down but not ones to be oppressed by such frivolities we then made our way
Action shot
Victoria at the Iglesia de san Pedro to the Casa de Inca Garcilaso de la Vega. This guy was Peru´s most famous historian and he owned a monster of a house in Cusco which is now a museum. Conor´s actually reading his most famous book on the Incas right now. We´ll let you know how it turns out! The museum contained a lot of religious paintings and tapestries along with a load of furniture from the time of the conquistadores. Onward still and this time to the Inca museum. This contained pottery, textiles, metal works and other such Incan artefacts. We were also surprised to see some withered oul Incan mummies. They were nice. Then we made our way up to San Blas church and had a tipple around the surrounding market. After a couple of days of rest we decided to head off and take in a tour of the Sacred valley
The town of Pisac was our first stop on the tour and this is known for its Sunday market. It was here that took place a series of hagglings and general banter with the locals, all in good humour of course. There was a little man-made guinea pig town situated right beside the
Iglesia de san Francisco
Everyone prays in their own way fire oven where the poor little buggers are cooked to the point of being "Cuy", the local dish. Please see previous blog for details. The tapestries and crafts were absolutely fantastic. Everywhere you looked there was alpaca wool, so many vibrant furnishings and clothes and you wouldn´t believe the restraint to be used on Victoria, such was her desire to buy out the entire market!! We kept on saying that if this was our last stop on the tour we would have ended up having to charter a boat home. There was so much we wanted to buy and when I say we I mean Victoria. There was also a little church in the market, outside of which stood the mayors of all the local towns and their little mates who were mayors-in-training. They were all rigged out in the traditional gear and of course we documented these images. Back on the bus and on for a luncheon buffet. How grand! There was FLAN...enough said, Vicki was happy! Having sated our appetites, we moved on to Ollantaytambo, the best surviving example of Incan town planning. The town itself is beautiful, the view, picturesque and another great ancient complex. We made
our way up the steep terraces, where at the top is a massive stone used for ceremonies. The views up here were amazing. We were to told that there were faces to be made out on one of the mountains across from us. Vicki saw it immediately but Conor´s simple mind couldn´t grasp it. After some messing around in the town we bussed it to a local lady´s house where we sampled the local sauce aka Chicha, a corn beer stored in huge pots and it wasn´t till after we tried it that we found out that the fermentation process is started by someone chewing the corn. Mmmmm....love that spit!! We sat in her kitchen drinking our chicha and eating different types of corn. We also had a crack at one of the local games where you try to fling a coin into a wooden box. Conor´s talents were lacking at this particular juncture however Victoria stood up to the plate and won the day and saved Conor´s blushes. Then...the bus broke down. We actually had a great laugh out of this. The engine over-heated and the poor bus driver had to walk down to the nearest river which was
Casa Garcilosa
Spot the Victoria about 500 yards away and fill a bucket of water. Our sadistic natures got immense enjoyment out of watching the driver struggle back up the steep hill carrying the bucket now full of water. Captain Victoria´s suggestion of constructing a human chain fell on deaf ears but her supervisory skills were utilised to full effect as 3 or 4 kind hearted tourists made their way down to help the driver who,at this stage looked as if he was on the edge of a coronary event. As the lads carried the bucket up the hill Vicki shouted at them not to spill a drop or she´d send them back down to fill it again. Conor was unable to provide his invaluable aid as he was already occupied documenting the situation mentally and via the medium of photography. Having made use of a make shift funnel to cool the engine we were on the road again and before we knew it we were back on the road. We hit another town called Chinchero, which aside from some ancient Incan masonry, was a little non-descript. It wasn´t long until we were back in Cusco and we were forced to resort to what every
Plaza de Armas
Cusco´s central square other hungry pilgrim does at such a late hour...McDonalds! Only our good friend Ronald of the Donald family could have provided the sustenance needed for Machu Picchu, which was next
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