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Published: October 25th 2005
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Well we´ve now been in Cusco for 3 & 1/2 days (and boy did it take a bit to get here...nearly 13 hrs to BA, then another 4.5 to lima and finally another hour to cusco) and have they been worth it!
It is recommended that you come & adjust to the altitude here (3310m) before the trek. the first day we were fine, but woke in the middle of the night with a killer headache. the next was a bit hazy and by the third I was ok but Matt was still a little dodgy. today we are both good - thank god as tomorrow we start the trek on the Inka trail!
Cusco itself is a gorgeous town. Kind of what I expected with cobbled stone streets and colonial buildings, pretty squares, etc, etc. Mind if you head out it does get dodgy and we went past a bit that was very much a ´shanty town´
The people are lovely and friendly and there is a really mixture of traditional dressed locals and ´modern´dressed locals. My favourite has been the tradtional dressed woman with a baby sling except inside is a baby alpaca!!
The food is also fantastioc
and have not had a bad - or small - meal. even the soup has been a huge meal in itself! Have yet to try alpaca or guinea pig ( which will traumatise my sister!) but will do when we return from the trail.
As for what we have done - not much! We are staying in a great hostel
Loki Hostela few minutes walk from the town square and it has the best view! it is a great villa type thing with a grassed green in the centre and everything off that. It has internet, a bar, TV room. I would def recommend it. There is alot of British here - Irish, Welsh, and English - espec northerners. Alot have also seemed to live here opening hostels, restaurants, and bars. they play the football all the time so matt is happy and has made friends with the different guys watching it!
We have explored a bit og the town and went to pisco for the markets. I´m quite taken with the alpaca teddy bears - very cuddly! We have also seen the Inca wall - which is quite amazing as they are perfectly cut to fit in with
each other - one having 12 sides to fit with all those around it. impressive as they are hand carved perfectly. Ther has also been plenty of parades, demonstations and kids dancing in the squares every day we´ve been here.
Tonight we met a few of the group we will be doing our trek with. We met four others and more tomorrow. The four were all Canadian. Two brother and an older couple. All seem really nice the brother seem like they will provide the entertainment and are quite funny.
Anyway looking forward to tomorrow, though a bit apprehensive. Last time we did a trek I woke up the morning off it very sick and it was over 30C with high humidity, so felt like i was going to die. matt also did his back in - luckily we had taken our own physio!! With this trek they say the first day is fine but the second is a killer! Mostly uphill to a pass at 4200m... not looking forward to it. but I have been told it is all worth it at the end. I´ll tell you soon whether we agree (hopefully..)
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Eva-Ash
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If i ever gave you any advice about fashion, this would be the time to admit it - DO NOT BUY THAT THING