Advertisement
Published: January 14th 2013
Edit Blog Post
Taking a lunchtime flight from Lima to Cuzco I began to appreciate what a difference a few thousand meters can make at the same latitude. Leaving behind the hot, dusty, arid and rocky terrain of Lima it wasn't long before we entered the Andes to be engulfed by bright green hills and mountainsides contrasted only by the odd snow capped peak, lake or river. At 3500m the former Inca capital Cuzco is much fresher and cooler than the coast and obviously with the air being considerably thinner the altitude can take some getting used to. Having good fitness at present and being off the scale on a recent peak flow test I foolishly didn't think the altitude would be an issue so I dropped my bag off at my accommodation and headed off for the induction tour of the town by my Spanish School. It wasn't long however before I began to feel light headed and spent the rest of the day in a semi tipsy '3/4 pint' state. Fortunately the effects of the altitude were limited for me as others in the group suffered from nausea, headaches and dehydration. The Spanish School's tour of the town proved to be
something of a chicken and egg experience. Conducted entirely in Spanish I spent most of the time listening profusely for the odd word I understood, nodding and smiling before attempting to reverse engineer an understanding of a speech lasting several minutes. This did lead to some mildly entertaining scenarios in my head however that were quickly dismissed as ridiculous such as 1 year olds doing the stone masonry for the Cathedral...My opinion of Peru so far is very positive. The food is inexpensive and very tasty, the towns and cities don't seem overly commercialised and the people are incredibly friendly. Almost too friendly at times as I discovered when the nice customs lady at Lima airport added me as a friend on facebook following a 5 minute conversation about my entrance into the country! Useful I guess though if I breach my Visa! The street sellers aren't too pushy and in Cuzco its nice to see that whilst Multinationals are allowed to operate their shopfronts and advertising must be subtle. Without looking clearly you'd easily miss the local Starbucks, KFC or McDonalds. Yesterday evening I spent some time in the main square, the Plaza de Armas. At night this is
pretty spectacular when lit up and really leaves you impressed with the stone work and architecture that the Incas and later the Spaniards achieved. I'm hoping that later in the week on a clear night I might be able to get some decent long exposure shots there. From the tour it appears that I am the only Chico at the school at present, whilst this didn't bother me a great deal it did have some of the group wondering how the nearly compulsory Salsa lessons would work. I did propose a parents evening style rota of 10 minute slots, however this didn't seem to go down too well for some reason....2 weeks of Spanish lessons start today!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.099s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 7; qc: 45; dbt: 0.066s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb