Cusco

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This is a retroactive plog entry. We never had time to update before we left for our Inka Trail trek but thought we´d give everyone some of our impressions on Cusco.

We arrived at the Cusco airport around noon from Lima. We were picked up and taken to our hostel by a lady (who´s name escapes me) and her 3 year old daughter. Our Hostal in Cusco was more of a Pension and at that more of a Bed and Breakfast - so it´s been very comfortable here.

I had some trouble with the altitude. For those that don´t know, the city of Cusco sits at 3300 meters above sea level. It took me a couple of days to adjust. Nothing serious to complain about just some annoying headaches and general fatigue. Adina had no problems what so ever; somewhat of a reversal from what we expected.

The city is nicknamed the Gringo (not spanish person) capital of South America and you can certainly tell why it´s earned its title. Lots of people coming and going on trips and lots more people just hanging out here taking advantage of the nightlife and cheaplife. We managed to run into a friend of ours, Josh Zweig, who´s been travelling around the world for the past year. We´ve also managed to run into 101 Israeli´s down here.It´s funny to see restaurants and hotels that cater to Israeli´s using hebrew signage.

The city itself is quite nice. In the times of the Inka Kings, Cusco was the capital of the entire empire, once the Spanish conquistadors discovered it, they robbed the city of its gold and silver and established it as a catholic centre in South America. From this history the city has a rich mix of catholicism and inka sights and monuments. The streets are more narrow than you can imagine yet they´re all two way traffic streets which results in a bunch of mexican standoffs (or peruvian standoffs) a day where one car forces another car to back up until it can proceed. On top of that, most of the city is built into the hills, so it´s a good workout to get around but that also adds a lot of charm and distiction to the city.

In the hills high above the city (afterall we´re in the Andes), there are several Inka ruins to check out. The ruins are kept well in tact for the most part and seem more impressive than greek and roman ruins based on their spiritual and geographical qualities. We´ve both enjoyed learning a lot about the ancient Inka Empire.

Cheap restaurants, nice walks, and saying "no gracias" about 300 times a day sum up our time here. We´ve more or less just been taking it easy while we gear up for our inka trail trek. Speaking of which, we have confirmed that we are indeed on a trek and leaving on July 10th. Several broken spanish phone calls and a sketchy backroom meeting with "pepo" have resulted in us being well taken care of for our trek and anytime we want a drink at a local bar/club called "Mama Afrika" (a popular "gringo" club).

Anyway, we feel like we´re really into the trip now, the city is really special and we can´t wait for our Inka Trail trek and our arrival to Machu Pichu.

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