Capital of the once mighty Inca Empire
Trip Start
Dec 14, 2007
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169
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Trip End
Mar 16, 2009
Cusco,
Peru
Saturday, December 6, 2008
With its narrow cobblestoned streets, fascinating architecture and lively squares it's a perfect city to stroll through and simply absorb a little Peruvian culture. The Peruvian ladies in their immaculate colourful traditional dresses were particularly impressive and were seen all over the city. With the influx of tourists it was also a perfect opportunity for many locals to make some extra income so it wasn't unusual to see young children dressed in traditional outfits carrying baby alpaca's posing for photos for a few Soles
A Palza in Cusco
. Together with the innocent looking pay as you click entrepreneurs there were ladies on almost every street corner selling massages to an endless barrage of art students packing their entire portfolio and offering paintings at a bargain price of Soles 1, clearly to try and entice you to stop and look at their collection. The influx of tourists had obviously had a positive and maybe negative effect on this once grand Inca capital but despite the sales barrage it was still a safe city to explore on foot.
Cusco is also the perfect place to stock up on woollen products mostly made from soft alpaca wool. You could find just about every woollen garment you could imagine from jerseys to ponchos to gloves, scarves, socks and hats. Not knowing much about wool I found the prices were often reasonable and the quality very good, we so wished we had more space in our luggage as these would have been Christmas gifts.
During our three day visit we saw a few peaceful protests, colourful religious ceremonies and many lively street bands. The town was also filled with great restaurants and bars serving everything from alpaca steaks to guinea pigs and other local Quechua meals
Inca Parade
. To our surprise tucked in a corner of the main square was a Mc Donald's restaurant (minus the red arches) which sadly we succumbed when we were in need of some comfort food and free WiFi.After realising that the medication I was taking was not making me any better, we headed back to the pharmacy and got an over the counter three day course of anti-biotic's which the friendly pharmacist assured me would have me fit and health for the Inca Trail. The other health problem most people battle with when visiting the city is the effects of the altitude and the staff at the hostel knowing this gave us an endless supply of cocoa tea. Cocoa tea is simply made by soaking a handful of dried cocoa leaves in hot water and is supposed to be one of the best remedies for altitude sickness. We found it quite refreshing and amusing at the same time when we found out that these were the same leaves used to make cocaine. Cocoa leaves have long been an important part of the Andean culture and used for a host of different purposes but mostly to give a little extra lift when tackling the peaks.
We loved our stay in Cusco and felt we could easily have stayed longer but we had the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu to look forward to and now that I was feeling a lot better we were both really excited to get going.
