Blogs from Cusco, Cusco, Cusco, Peru, South America - page 60

The Mami Panchita driver deposits me at Lima airport. I´m quickly through the expedited Lan.com check-in lane, and Lan Peru 71 bound for Cuzco lifts off the tarmack on time. In a window seat, I have views of the Andes, the Cordilla Blanca and Cordilla Negra. They are majestic, stark, remote in contours of brown, white, and distant grey. At the Cuzco airport, Alan from my tour operator for the Inca Trail meets me. We are at Los Ninos I Hotel by noon. On the way we chat in mixed English and Spanish, and I´m booked on a Cuzco City tour at 2. Los Ninos I is a hotel founded in 1998 as part of a project that Dutch woman Jolanda van den Berg founded to support the homeless children of Cuzco. The project know has ... read more

Sunday 24 No rest for the wicked, it was up early again and down to the local bus station. Travelled for approximately 6-7 hours across the spectacular Altiplano to Cuzco. We were all suffering different symptoms from the altitude so were munching on the coca leaf lollies. Stopped at the point midway between Puno and Cusco at 4335m and what an absolutely fantastic view and of course no photo opportunity is complete without the numerous ‘tourist traps’. Commercialism has really caught up…a little girl with a lamb and baby alpaca is really cute, but if you want to take a photo …’that will be 1 sol’ and she wouldn’t take anything less! Continued onto Cusco. This time we arrived during day light hours. Since we had arrived early and had spent the last couple of days ... read more

Kelly and I spent the day walking around Cuzco, seeing the museums and planning our future travels, what we didn´t count on is how freaking cold it can get here. I know that someone else would probably have put together the facts that (1) its winter here and (2) we are 9,000 feet above sea level and figured out that the Peruvian Andes may be a bit chilly. We, however, did not quite pack for the trip correctly. Kelly at least has a pair of sneakers. I, on the other-hand, have only a single pair of sandals and a single pair of socks (the sandles are made of Yak, which do live above the tree line, but this has not helped my frigid exposed feet so far). Being unprepared has, however, enabled us to justify SHOPPING! ... read more

We went to the orientation tonight for our four day hike along the Lares route to Machu Picchu tomorrow, and were a bit surprised to learn that everyone else in the group hired porters to carry their bags. One man even complained quite forcefully about having to carry his own 1.5L water bottle! This should be interesting. We´ve spent the past couple of days exploring the area in and around Cusco. This city was the capital of the Inca empire, and the amount of ruins here are simply astounding. Poor Steve has had to endure MANY hours of me salivating over various museum exhibits of Inca artifacts. It´s amazing to see in person all of the pieces I spent years studying in undergrad (Anthropology major). I have been most impressed with the architecture of many structures. ... read more

And here begins the vacation part of my vacation. Yet another really early morning. I rolled out of my down haven one last time and was welcomed by a lukewarm shower that turned cool by the end. The hotel is under major renovations, and apparently they´re playing with the hot water. We met our travel agent down in the lobby at 6:15 and got in HIS car (how many travel agents do that?!) for a ride to the airport. Our plans had been pretty up in the air for a while, and we finally settled on something on Monday (we were kind of forced to pick Mon because many of the hotels and transports had filled up). The rough outline is Cusco city with city tour on Sat, Sun to Macchu Pichu and spend the night ... read more