2nd day in Cusco & City Tour
Trip Start
Aug 30, 2008
1
8
64
Trip End
Oct 31, 2008
Cusco,
Peru
Friday, September 5, 2008
Afterwards, I went out to sit at the San Francisco Church Plaza, where a I chatted with a couple different locals which were really nice. I sat there enjoying the nice weather and the shade of the tree, as I read a little bit of my travel guide and just relaxed. I stayed there till about 10am or so, when I headed back towards the main Plaza de Armas and then to my hostel for a bit.
In the afternoon I took the city tour I had reserved which was quite nice
Drinking Juice
. We went to Qoricancha, Sacsaywaman, Q´enqo, Pukapukara, and Tambomachay. To get into these places (and many more) you have to buy the Cusco Tourist ticket which costs 70 soles for Peruvians and 130 Soles for foreigners.Qoricancha was the only place where you had to pay extra. 10 soles for non-students, and I was able to score the 5 soles student price with my still-very-expired CU Denver student ID.I´m really bad at remembering all of the information that the guides tell me and all of the different features each place had.. that´s why I take pictures! haha... Sorry... For starters, the Qoricancha was a beautiful Inca palace ( I think, hehe) which used to have it´s stones covered in gold, but the Spaniards took all of that, of course.. It had lots of beautiful colonial paintings and really interesting Inca architecture.
Afterwards, we headed back no the bus up towards Sacsaywaman, and the other Inca sights. It was really cool, actually, to remember being in these places. Especially when we got to Q´enqo, where they performed numerous sacrifices, apparently. I clearly remember when I went with my high school prom trip, going through the narrow passages to get to the other side, and the altar sacrifice where I had posed like a silly school kid 10 years ago, and where many other tourists pose like silly tourists today.
Tomorrow I don´t have any tours organized, so I´m going to go ahead and visit the numerous museums that the tourist ticket includes. Then, on Sunday I´ll do the Sacred Valley tour, and head from Ollantaytambo to Aguas Calientes. Then, on Monday, I´m off to Machu Picchu.
(I should have the photos up by tomorrow)
Comments
arriba Perú!!
Hola Christian, veo que estás sacándole jugo al Cusco, conociendo y volviendo a ver sitios que visitaste antes. Cusco es una ciudad que uno puede visitar miles de veces y siempre te sientes bien, por algo se le conoce como el ombligo del mundo y tiene una energía especial.
qué lindo que vas a volver a Machu Picchu el domingo, espero que puedas pasar un tiempo con Gastón.
te quiero mucho mucho!!