Cusco and Surrounds

After our amazing week in the Amazon and getting our camera gear wet, we arrived in Cusco. Wow, what a pushy city!!! Too many street touts trying to sell you everything from finger puppets to different tours. By the end of two days, we were well and truly ready to head into the mountains for our Inka trail trek.

Girls on Parade

Apart from the harrassment, Cusco is actually a beautiful city. It has the customary Plaza de Armas (in every city or town). Very nice cathedrals and some great small hikes to do in the surrounding area. This was especially good for us to prepare and get acclimatised for our trek.

Corinne with Inka Kola

Our first day was mainly spent trying to get our wide angle lens sorted out!! As it turned out, the Amazonian rain, well and truly ruined it! Bummer. So after a good day of stressing and trying to find a ´reputable´dealer in Cusco (there aren´t many), we were able to sort it out with a second hand lens. (Sigma 18-50. f 2.8 for those techno people).

Boy on Parade

Cactus near Sacsayhuaman

We also saw a religious parade on the main plaza with school children as the main focus. Their brightly coloured clothing and head dresses were spectacular. As it turned out, there seemed to be some sort of parade nearly everyday we were there. Not surprisingly, Sunday had the biggest celebrations.

We did a day hike to the four ruins around Cusco. This entailed catching a local bus to the furthest one and then walking for approximately 4-5 hours back into Cusco.

Lady with Llama

The first ruins were Tambo Machay, Puca Pucara, Qenko and then finally Sacsayhuaman. (Sexy woman!) The ruins were a great introduction to the Inka culture for us and the final ruins were certainly the most spectacular. Admittedly, the altitude got to us this day and we did find it hard work walking up hill to our hotel at the end of the day!! Not too bad really just a slight headache and short of breath. Cusco is at 3326m and the furthest ruins of Tambo Machay are even higher at 3700m.

Our last night was spent meeting the rest of the trekking group, who were all Americans, made up of two other couples and two girl friends. More on this later!!

Off to the trail we go!! Woo hoo.

Keep the emails coming. We love to hear from you all.

Oh, by the way, my rash cleared up after about a week. I think it was heat rash, combined with mozzie bites!! So no weird jungle fungus Chris.....

C and C xx

written by

chrishoorweg on September 9, 2007 from Cusco, Peru

from the travel blog: and one last trip before we come home.........?

tagged Cusco

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Fantastic photos guys - can't wait to see more!

written by Andy Collins on September 19, 2007

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