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Published: December 8th 2006
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My second overnight bus trip (Arequipa to Cusco) was not nearly so blissfull as the first, as I had stomach issues and a very old man sleeping on top of me (side note: Peruvians have no sense of personal space, or perhaps merely a very limited one. People cram in everywhere, so it is not odd to climb over someone's lap with your head in someone else's armpit, or to sit leaning against the perfect stranger next to you. End side note.)
Arrival in Cusco was thankfully
not accompanied by altitude sickness, which I had been nervous about. My first week here I stayed in a lovely little family-run hostel just outside of the tourist-ridden center. However, I've decided to stick around Cusco for at least a month, as I really like both the city and the abundance of amazing hiking opportunities in the surrounding country. So I moved, and for the next month or so I'll be working in a very large, laid-back hostel and exploring the area. Yay.
Cusco was the capital of the Inca empire. So, many of the buildings in the town center have foundations from Inca times. The Inca built using absolutely gigantic stones, fitted together
with amazing precision. Their walls are slanted slightly inward. Then, there are the colonial remains. So a cool example of all this layered history is the church of Santo Domingo, which is also the Temple of the Sun, the most important temple in the Inca Empire. All this makes for a very interesting city to wander about in.
The prices for tourists here are astounding. For example, there is a ticket which allows admittance to all the major archaeological sites, churches, and museums. This ticket costs around 70 soles, which is quite a bit of money if you're travelling on the cheap. Especially if the museums sound terrible, the churches are free if you just attend mass, the archaeological sites are free if you're Peruvian, and the ticket expires after 10 days. I absolutely will not buy this. The issue here is that it turns out that you can't buy individual tickets for the sites! Nope, it's this ridiculously overpriced ticket, or nothing! So I'm going in the back ways. New lesson: there is always another path. So far I've seen the four sites which lie just outside the city, in a row on the highway from Cusco to Pisac.
Near Sacsayhuaman
People dress up themselves and their livestock so tourists will pay to take pictures of them. These are Tambo Machay, Puca Pucara, Q'enqo, and Sacsayhuaman (they only check tickets at the first stop either way: Tambo Machay and the entrance from the city of Cusco to Sacsayhuaman. You can take a bus or collectivo or taxi to anywhere in between and wander to your heart's content.)
Sacsayhuaman is awesome. Here a guy came up to me, and offered me a free tour. He was full of interesting information, which of course I would not have learned otherwise.
The city of Cusco was originally built in the shape of a Puma, and Sacsayhuaman is the Puma's head, on a hill above the city. My friend and guide told me that the name was originally sacsay-uma (sacsay=head, uma=puma). He also showed me animal shapes in the stones of the walls! Most of the gigantic stones are squarish. Then, amongst them are differently shaped stones which form llamas, snakes, condors, rabbits... I believe he said there are a total of 120 animal designs in the walls. This makes the architectual acheivement even more remarkable... June 24th is Inti Raymi, the annual festival at which a black llama is sacrificed... thousands upon thousands of people come to Cusco for this
festival, which is held at Sacsayhuaman.
Across a small field from the remaining walls of the structure, whose giant stones (and animal shapes!) are the main tourist attraction, there is a hill of glacial stone. On the other side of this stone, there's a... playground! A natural playground!
Realy, what it is is more ruins, with tunnels you can walk through, get lost in... then a large field perfect for picnicing and soccer and whatnot, and then... natural sliding boards in the glacial stone! You better believe I did it! You go very, very fast... it's a lot like the tubs, without the water. So of course, a lot less scary 😊
I also took a day and hiked to Salinas, high up in a canyon outside the town of Urubamba. I don't really have any information to share on these, as I had no guide, other than the fact that they are ancient, there are 5000 of them, and there were families working in them when I was there. Here's how it seems to work: very salty water from the hot springs at the top of the canyon flows into the man-made receptacles. The water evaporates, and people come
along with pickaxes and chop up the remaining salt, pile it, bag it, and carry it away. And the process starts again. I assume the state of evaporation accounts for the variety of shades of the salt pans, which lend to the wholly surreal, martian beauty of the landscape.
From here I hiked up, and up, and up, for about 10 km (my book said 1.5!), back to the highway. Along the way the only people I saw, oddly, were small children with donkeys. Hola, hola, hola, said I, and this tubby boy goes, "Hola. Do you have a caramel?" !!! This was
in the middle of nowhere.
Who is teaching these children that foreigners give out candy?! Whoever you are, stop it.
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Paula
non-member comment
Cutter?!
the one thing my cutter has that this guy's doesn't have? ...tetanus!!!!