Blogs from Cusco, Cusco, Peru, South America - page 193

16/3 Caught a City Tour and visited the four ruins above Cusco. Sacsayhuaman was the largest and most impressive. Tambomachay had beautiful waterfalls, Qenqo: a zigzig path, almost a tunnel and underground altar, Pukapukara was a pile of rocks on a hill. Not in the best condition. Maybe it was the increasing cold, the people attacking you with goods at each site or the overly detailed explanations but I couldnt wait to get back and head for dinner. Next day took myself around to the various museums using the Cusco tourist ticket. Bargain at s/70, gets you into most sites, ruins, Pisak, Sacred Valley etc. The Museo Historical Regional was a fanatstic collection of artifacts from the area, tracing the development from original Inca to Spanish intruders. The Museo Santa Catalina had the msot incredible collection ... read more

Cuzco is truly a stunning city - imagine colonial style buildings, cobbled streets and a green plaza with grass that people actually sit on (unheard of in South America!). Mud-brick houses fill the streets and spill onto the mountains, that continued to surprise me even after 6 days.. Each time I looked up I had almost seemed to have forgotten about the mystifying mountains that surrounded us. We were welcomed by Adam - the dodgiest tour guide - with whom the excitement and uncertainty did not stop until we were finally rid of him in Nazca! But his business approach was typical of Peru (so he liked to tell us), and despite a few dollars that he tried to retain here and there as we didnt get our change till the very last day, a no-show ... read more

We went from Puno to Cusco with the lovely posh first class bus company, complete with a toilet, beverages of coca tea and coke, a buffet lunch, and an entertaining tour guide! The inca ruins were intriguing, as was the Jesuit church filled with a combination of Andean and Christian art. Even more so was a stretch of towns: - Land of the bread bakers - Land of the fried pork - Land of the guinea pigs Now, we handled the bread bakers just fine. Apparently all the bread sold in Cusco is from bakers who get up at 12 midnight, to bake the bread and have deliver it by morning. And sure, land of the fried pork was ok too. The town was filled with restaurants with fried pork, not too much else. Then we ... read more

cuzco is a beautiful town. it reminds me of the old beauty of prague, only cheaper and with a latin twist. all the streets are paved with cobblestones and it just has this great energy which has made the first few days of our trip wonderful. they cuzqueños (people from cuzco) have treated us very well even though it is a tourist town swimming in gringos. the only annoyance are the swarms of children selling finger puppets and quechua women with llamas offering to let us take a picture of them for a sol (30 cents). all in all, cuzco is a must visit; a wonderful place. and guess what, the lights never go out here! we are living in heaven. we went out drinking a few times here. they ahve people handing out free drink ... read more

After our little detour to Queens we finally arrived, a day later than expected, to Cuzco. The flight from JFK to Lima was long and i ddin´t get much sleep. LAN does have good service though, the food was good and there were plenty of movies and video games to keep me occupied during the long night of little sleep. Lima was hot, but we only had a 3 hour layover there, thank god. we were accosted immediately upon emerging from customs, but enough ¨dejame en paz¨s were sufficient to shoo them away. the flight from lima to cuzco was the best flight i have ever been on. it was beautiful. we saw incredible topography, and even some snow capped mountains. this part of peru looked very sparsely populated and virgin, very unlike what i remember ... read more