Cus-co-ool

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Hello again!

A 7hr bus ride and we've arrived in Cusco! An afternoon of boring logistics was in order and after booking bus tickets and spending an hour changing a flight (long winded or what!) we trapsed around trying to find somewhere to stay - the only trouble being that all we wanted was a cr**py standard room, and everywhere here is just too nice!

Dan - So we're sitting there on the bus, and a small lady huffs and puffs up the stairs carrying a huge package on her back, she slams it on the side and shouts something out that I dont understand, but I smell food, and it gets my attention. I wonder what she is selling, but within seconds she wields a Meat cleaver and starts hacking at the carcus and soon realise that she has in fact a whole COOKED animal inside the package that was on her back. My caveman instinct awakens and I find myself shouting "Señora, Uno por favour" "si, señor, cinco soles" so to translate got me a piece of carcus and 3 potatoes for a quid.

Nic - We didn´t really have very high expectations for Cusco (we´d mistakenly put it into the same basket as Puno and Copacabana, with regards to it being a tourist town) so when we arrived we were very pleasantly surprised! It´s a stunning town with beautiful colonial buildings, cathedrals and churches all sitting alongside and sometimes on top of the original Inca foundations. Plaza de Armas is the main centre of the city with the most impressive architecture, but follow the streets that radiate from here and you end up struggling up narrow, windy cobbled streets with overhanging balconies and intrigueing nooks and crannies! Being the ´visual person´that I am, again I was in awe and couldn´t have spent enough time exploring, especially when we got higher up one of the hills and had an amazing view of all the roofs and alleyways below!

Dan - Yes Cusco is a lovely town, very supprised how nice it was, we only came here to catch the train up to Machu Picchu and ended up agreeing that it´s one of the most beautiful towns we´ve visited. Although there are alot of tourists here, there are also loads of locals that allows it to keep it´s balance.

We had originally planned to do the ´Inca Trail´ (A four day trek through the mountains that ends up at Machu Picchu - the famous Lost City of the Inca´s) but it´s far too touristy now (we´ve heard reports that you constantly follow a long line of people and don´t get a second to yourself to enjoy or appreciate the beauty!) and it´s VERY expensive! Another reason not to take this trail is that fact that it´s so popular that it´s gradually wearing the landscape away. So plan B is to get the train up to Aguas Calientes - the village that sits in the valley below Machu Picchu and visit it from there.

So stay tuned to see if we make it.

More soon
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