Blogs from Cusco, Cusco, Peru, South America

After the delicious buffet style breakfast offered by the hotel, we set out to explore the nearby Plaza Mayor of Cusco. At an elevation of 11,200 feet, most of the streets seem to involve climbing to some extent which I had deemed my enemy, but I absolutely loved the look and feel of the ones that seemed no more than narrow alleyways, mostly ending in small plazas surrounded by colonial architecture. The city was the capital of the Inca Empire from the 13th century until 1532. In 1983, Cusco was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO and designated as the Historical Capital of Peru by The Constitution of Peru. Many believe that the city was planned in the shape of a puma, a sacred animal. Buildings constructed after the Spanish invasion often have a mixture ... read more

Week 42: My blog is moving to https://heatherjasper.com Please subscribe to receive notifications about blogs posted there! I took last week off from blogging and spent a very traditional New Year's Eve and New Year's Day in Urubamba. Just like Christmas Eve, on New Year's Eve we waited until midnight, went outside by the nativity scene and gave everybody a hug, wishing them a happy New Year and putting yellow confetti in their hair. On Christmas it was multi-colored confetti, but for New Year, everything in Peru is yellow and gold. It's supposed to bring a prosperous New Year and goodness do we all need that after last year! Honestly, I am just so thankful that all of my friends and family survived 2020 and that nobody in my family got Covid. For most of 2020, ... read more

Sunday, 13 December, 2020 40 weeks is full term! Cusco has carried our Covid baby to full term, but now what? It has been a full nine months since Covid was officially diagnosed in Cusco, on March 13th. So much has happened, sometimes it feels like a full decade, not just one year. I don’t think that we’re yet at a point in the pandemic when we can actually have an idea of what the future will bring. I can really only focus on one day at a time. My biggest priority is surviving the pandemic, hopefully staying healthy until I can get a vaccine, not getting Covid at all. Anything beyond that is gravy. However, today was so overwhelming that it’s hard for me to call it gravy. I got up at 4am to go ... read more

Sunday, 29 November, 2020 I’m still so happy about last week’s trek around Mt. Ausangate! The mountains here are one of the biggest reasons that I wanted to move to Cusco. It’s really amazing to see how different the climate here is, depending on the altitude. When you get down below the altitude of Cusco, you realize that you’re really close to the equator. Even just going to Machu Picchu, which is only about three hours away, takes you into the cloud forest and the very edge of the Amazon rainforest. When you head up into the mountains higher than Cusco, you are immediately in the high altitude ecosystem, where all plants are tiny and very few trees or crops can grow. I’ve always wondered why, and finally took the time to look it up. Part ... read more

Sunday, 15 November, 2020 Today was so overwhelming I don’t even know where to begin. Covid is definitely not the top story right now. The whole country has been protesting for a week now, which finally convinced most of the new cabinet to resign. A majority of the cabinet resigning forced Merino himself to resign today at noon. There were already protests planned for today at 2pm, in response to the url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/nov/15/interim-president-of-peru-steps-down-after-two-protesters-killedpolice killing two young protesters yesterday. Merino’s resignation just two hours before protests were scheduled to start certainly calmed some of the anger. Instead of demanding that Merino step down, the protests were left with their secondary purpose, to hold a candle-light vigil for the two people killed and to protest police brutality. I stayed home,... read more