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Published: September 5th 2009
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View from our room at the Inkarri On Monday 08/24/09 we got up and headed to the hotel’s dining room for breakfast. We had Andean cereal mixed with papaya and yogurt, eggs, bread, butter, strawberry jam, juice, coffee…a pretty good spread. We were supposed to meet up with Percy at 9am but Cathy wasn’t feeling very well (altitude sickness), so it took us a bit to get going waiting for the anti-altitude sickness pills to take effect.
The city tour included Sacsayhuaman, Tambomachay, Pucapucara, and Qenqo and would last ½ day. On the way to Sacsayhuaman, we stopped at an outlook, where one can see the entire city of Cuzco, capital of the Inca Empire (1200s to 1532). In the distance, the snowcapped mountain Ausangati rises to 6,380 meters (21,000 feet) above sea level.
Our first stop, Sacsayhuaman, is an impressive Inca complex (archeological excavations are still underway) which main structure is formed by multi-level, lighting bolt shaped walls made of limestone rocks, some weighing in at 100+ tons. Percy explained that it took 50 years and the work of about 100,000 people to build Sacsayhuaman (as the Incas built only during the dry season). The quarries were located two miles away and one can still
see the ramps the Incas used to move the huge rocks.
From Sacsayhuaman, we moved on to Qenqo, a nearby temple carved within a rock formation, used by the Incas for religious ceremonies, offerings, and animal sacrifices. Inside, one can see altars and, from an angle, the head and neck of a llama shaped by the various walls and altars. Pretty interesting!
Nearby Pucapucara is now an archeological site that used to be a checkpoint on the Inca trail on the way to the jungle. Tambomachay was the temple of the water, featuring aqueducts and water fountains carved in stone. In Inca times, the site was used for ceremonial purposes as well as to provide the local communities with fresh water.
With that, our city tour with Percy Salas was done. Both Ben and I were very pleased with his services and highly recommend him if you’d like to move at your own pace while visiting the sites in and around Cuzco. He’s very knowledgeable in Inca and local history and can customize tours according to your group; he had recommended the visit to Awanacancha because it would be something fun for Cathy to do, and, yes,
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Nearby houses it was her favorite place in Cuzco. Percy mentioned that he’s very busy during high season (May-August) and that sometimes he needs to turn people away or refer them to other guides. One thing I appreciated him doing was that he said I could get the Boleto Turistico (BT for short—Tourist Ticket needed to enter the Cuzco archeological sites, shows, and attractions that are part of a circuit put together by the Cuzco tourism agency. It included entry to most of the places we visited in Cuzco. You can pay to enter the individual sites, but if you end up going to several of them, it’s a better deal to just buy the BT) at the “National” rate, as opposed to the “Foreigner” rate because my US passport shows that I was born in Peru. He also “intervened” with the cashier at one of the sites on our behalf to purchase the BTs in dollars (we hadn’t exchanged them to soles yet); they are pretty adamant about getting payment in soles. After this I knew the drill and was able to pay for other entry fees at the “Nationals” rate by showing my US passport. Cool beans! No such luck
for Ben, though. Cathy, as a child, was free.
On the way back to the city center, Ben mentioned to Percy that he would like to eat cuy (Guinea pig), a local delicacy. Percy recommended that he had it for lunch, as it can be a bit heavy to digest if eaten at dinnertime. Percy also recommended going to El Meson de Don Tomas for cuy. When we arrived he must have asked the maitre d’ to pay special attention to us (tour guides like Percy know a lot of people in and around the city). We bid farewell to Percy and took our seats. The waiter quickly appeared with complimentary Pisco Sours. Ben, of course, ordered the cuy (Guinea pig), which is cooked in a brick oven stuffed with herbs and flavored with spices. I ordered the alpaca steak and Cathy had grilled chicken. To drink, we had Chicha morada (drink made from purple corn) and Inca Kola. Ben liked the cuy; it was very flavorful; the skin was a bit tough, but the meat was very tender. He did say that it was a lot of work for the amount of meat one gets (kinda like eating
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Inkarri roofs and courtyard crab legs, by my observation). He liked cuy but he didn’t order it again during the rest of our stay in Peru, mostly because it’s a “labor intensive” dish. My alpaca steak was very good too, not gamey, just different. I’d have it again.
After lunch we headed back to the hotel to get some rest before going to an Andean music and dance show that was part of our BTs. The show was very colorful and we recognized a couple of similar dances that we had seen at Brisas del Titicaca in Lima.
After the show we went to Yajúú and ordered a fruit salad bowl, triple sandwiches (tomato/chicken/avocado and ham/cheese/egg), chirimoya and milk juice (Ben), strawberry and milk juice (Cathy’s favorite), and lucuma and strawberry (for me). After dinner we headed back to the hotel. We were getting up at 5am to leave and catch our train ride to Machu Picchu. Yaaaay!
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