El Balcon Cusco

Arrived in Cusco today at 11.30am-ish after one-hour flight from Lima. We all (TM, Aaron and his mate Davy) immediately loved the look of Cusco which is real Peru with cobbled streets and a square and surrounded by the mountains.

We spent the day pretty zoned out with the altitude, it makes it hard to breathe and pretty tired. Coco leaf tea is supposed to be a great cure, so we were all drinking heaps of that! Its ok Mum the leaves are legal.

Cusco, Peru sophieolive

... loads of free seats on the bus. So after a stand up argument and the bus driver getting involved some people moved so we could all sit together.

Well at 5:30 we arrived in Cusco and grabbed a cab to Loki. they had rooms for us buy not for a while - so we walked into town to check out the tourist trap that is Cusco..

... br>Hat
Basic clothes change
Flash light
Rain coat
First aid kit



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... with us to stop one but they were full and we had determination in our eyes.

The entrance had a restaurant, café, luggage storage and toilets. We sat for 5 minutes guzzling our water and then strode in to the ruins.

Words fail me at this point, I had been keen to visit these ruins for many years and this, my birthday was a befitting time for my first and perhaps only visit. As with many tourists before me, my breath was taken away at ...

... sandals and their ponchos (no rain gear), and with one of the horsemen being 54 years old! Puts us to shame! Porridge AND omlettes for breakfast (wow) ready for our big climb for the day which would take 5-6 hours all uphill... it was very misty so we could not actually see the top of the mountain we were climbing which in a way it was quite nice, as I kept saying that the top of the mist was the top of the mountain, even though it never was! We stopped for a snack lunch ...

... Apparently its been used for 600 years by the Inca's to combat altitude sickness and provide energy for the arduous treks up mountains. It didn't taste great, sort of an ugly cousin to green tea, but it did give me a nice kick in the ass.
My friend Bryan and I were pretty exhausted after having slept in the Lima airport food court the night before, so with the help of the thin air and mild hypoxia, we passed out for a few hours. We spent the rest ...

... durch meinen Raum. Ich war zu
p**plex und d** Sprache leid** zu wenig mächtig, damit ich mich ordentlich hätte
beschw**en können. So stellte ich mich jeweils schlafend und lies die Tortur 2
Wochen üb** mich **gehen.

Vorb**eitung zum Salkantay-Trek

Morgen früh um 4.30 Uhr (bei euch ca. 11.30)
brechen wir auf zum Machu Picchu, d** alten Inka-Stadt in den Anden nahe Cusco.
Bepackt mit Zelt, Schlafsack und Food für den Trek. Insgesamt ...

... walk round nonetheless
Then we had a sumptous Peruvian buffet lunch, no guinea pigs though, but there was a Peruvian duet doing the old pan pipes routine. Very good they were too.
Then we went to see the fascinating Inca ruins of Ollantambayo, from where I start the Inca Trail tommorow. Very well preserved. The Incas were master stonemasons and their stonework has withstood earthquakes and what not. Our last stop was the small town of Chinceros where there was a festival ...

After the Sacred Valley tour seeing that I had enough time to get to the Centro Qosqo de Arte Nativo to catch an evening show of folk dancing (it was part of my visitor's ticket), I walked to the centre which resembled a large school hall. The show was mainly about traditional dance performances and live music from different regions in Peru. It was interesting, but the singing for the different regions seemed very similar. In fact it resembled ...