Getting to Know Cusco

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First of all, sorry for the massive period of silence, we are slowly catching up with the blog so expect some entries over the next few days!

Day 50-53
25th-28th October

So once again we were back at high altitude, in Cusco. We’d decided to arrive a few days before our tour started on the 28th, so we could rest and get some admin-y things done before we dropped off the radar for 10 days. Cusco is a mad place, called the ‘Navel of the World’ by the Quechua (that’s Inca to most of the World) as, like La Paz it is built in a bowl and is overrun with gringos about to either do the Inca trail or cheat and get the train to Machu Picchu. It is meant to be a huge party town, but to be honest we didn’t partake in that side of Cusco, in the previous 10 days we’d been in La Paz, Puno, Arequipa, Colca Canyon and Nazca and we were feeling the pace a little! However, once again we sampled some excellent restaurants, like the Inca Grill in Plaza de Armas (a little pricey but the food was amazing!). So for the 3 days we had before the tour started we did 1) laundry-seriously our backpacks were nearly walking on their own-grim. 2) caught up on the blog, 3) spoke to as many people as we could on Skype including a long overdue chat with Ellory’s mum who we hadn’t spoken to properly in nearly 2 months and 4) and possibly the most important, went to the post office to send stuff home. We’d been buying lots of souvenirs and were seriously overloaded. We’d also done some Christmas shopping in Cusco and needed to send everything home so it’d get there in time for Christmas. So off we went. We had quite a funny time at the post office trying to work out how to get everything wrapped, eventually the guy who sold us the boxes and bubble wrap stepped in, obviously he got tired of our amateurish attempts! He wrapped everything in a mile of bubble wrap, put it in the boxes, wrapped the boxes in a serious amount of tape and plastic wrap and we were ready to go. 3 boxes=360 soles (90 freaking English pounds) seriously, it was bloody expensive! However a grand total of 10 kilos is now on its way back to the United Kingdom and we were back down to 2 bags each, result. We also bought ourselves some fake north face daypacks for the Inca trail and some stylin’ walking poles so I could drag myself up to Machu Picchu if I needed to.

So after our days of trying to get ourselves organised we arrived on the 28th October, the day we officially became the property of Chimu Adventures for 10 days. Although we already had a hostel in Cusco (a flipping good one at that-El Tuco, most comfortable), the tour company had booked us into a hotel for the night of the 28th and 29th so we packed up our bags and moved a grand total of about a kilometre to the Plaza Sol Inn Hotel on a street called Plateros right next to the Plaza de Armas. This is where our tour company started to make some mistakes. We’d emailed Matt (the guy who’d organised everything for us) and asked him what time we were to arrive at the new hotel as they’d booked us on a city tour for that afternoon, 2pm was the reply. So we actually turned up at around 1.30pm thinking we’d hang out at the hotel for half an hour until our rooms were ready. At soon as we turned up we were asked, ‘why are you late?’ errr... didn’t think we were! Turned out check-in was at 11am and our city tour was due to leave any second. Excellent start! We had no choice but to rush up to our room, dump our bags, grab a jumper, money and cameras and head straight back out again!

We stopped by another hotel to pick up some more people (Ellory and I were the youngest people there by quite a long way) and we walked to the main square and into the Cathedral. Far be it for me to be disrespectful, but wow it was kinda tacky! We weren’t allowed to take pictures inside but there were all these different altars to various saints, fair enough, but the decorations were waaay over the top. I was trying not to laugh, I know, I’m terrible. But it was quite interesting, apparently when faced with the advancing Incan army (they were fighting back against the Spanish invasion) the head of the Spanish army, Francisco Pizzarro went into the Cathedral to pray and somehow, the Spanish won! (This is the seriously edited version people). Also during the huge 1650 earthquake they took a huge crucifix with Jesus on it outside into the square and the earthquake stopped, apparently a miracle! This crucifix is now a huge part of the cathedral and there are many flowers/offerings etc around him. There is also a funny altar where if you wish for yourself or for someone you know to be married, you write the couples names on a piece of paper and leave it at the altar, no idea if it works! But it made me smile.

Next we spent some time at the Church and Convent of Santo Domingo which is actually built upon the foundations of Koricancha, the Temple of the Sun, a Quechua temple. There is still a lot of the Inca work visible and it was pretty impressive to see how they build their walls. They didn’t use cement and each block is shaped so they fit together exactly, this temple has survived several massive earthquakes so they obviously knew what they were doing!

We then got on a bus and headed up to the ruins surrounding the city, the Inca Fortress, Sacsayhuaman (pronounced Sexy Woman). Even though not all of it remains, it is massive and how on earth they built the huge 20m high walls with the perfectly fitting stones is completely beyond me! One of the stones is approx 300 tons so there is some serious skill there. We then went on to visit Puca Pucara, which is believed to be a hunting Lodge, Tambo Machay, the Inca baths, apparently a site dedicated to the worship of water and a final resting place of the Inca monarchs, and finally, Kenko, an ancient worship site. Our guide was excellent, although he had a squeaky voice (!) and he was very good about explaining various aspects of the Inca culture.

We then returned to Cusco and went out for dinner in a lovely restaurant called Greens. It had been a most interesting day and we’re glad our Inca Trail/Amazon trip had included the city tour, helps if you understand what you are looking at I guess! We had an early night as we had another tour the next day, up to the Sacred Valley.

Love
Liz xxx

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