the old inca capital - cusco

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Arriving in Cusco was the beginning of a longer stay... Through e-mail contact I met my friend Shyloh from the Iquitos-conference the very first day in Cusco again. He had been in Ecuador after the conference also living in the jungle with a shaman and his family and just returned from there...
Moreover he had organised an ayahuasca-ceremony with Kevin Furnas, a western shaman who also had been at the Iquitos-conference and who lives in Cusco. So the same evening we held a small but amazing ceremony in the upper part of the inca-city...
Days went by quickly in Cusco - good and cheap vegetarian restaurants, nicely accomodated at "Osiris"-guesthouse, a lot of good people around and pleasant evening-hangouts everywhere...
One week had to pass until Shyloh and I headed into the sacred valley to go to Macchu Picchu. We went to Ollantaytambo from where we wanted to take a bus to Santa Maria, to avoid the horribly overpriced train to Macchu Picchu... But in the sweet little village Ollantaytambo just started a local festival - and we ended up staying there 3 days - not going any further. And because of Halloween we finally went back to Cusco to dance the whole night at the halloween-trance-party at "Pepe Zeta", before we returned to the sacred valley the next morning without having slept a single minute... :-)
This time we catched the bus to Santa Maria from where we walked the following day along the train-tracks to Aguas Calientes - the small village at the feet of Macchu Picchu...
The old inca-ruins, although quite expensive and crowded with tourists, were truly amazing... I walked the one-hour trail early in the morning from the village up to the ruins by myself. Early enough to climb up to higher Wayna-Picchu and get a stunning view over the whole Macchu-Picchu area before it started to get foggy and raining.
When we returned from the sacred valley we prepared to leave Cusco after more than 2 weeks inca-capital and an unusally long but funny journey to Macchu Picchu...

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Photos

ancient doorway
cusco and the sacred valley are the gate to the past world of the incas

shyloh and the dried baby-lama
you would not believe what you can find in local markets...