CUSCO

From Lima we took a big double decker tour bus to Cusco. We traveled for 22 hours along a highway widely known to be quite dangerous. The road was entirely carved into cliffs. We weaved and climbed our way through the Andes, through rural mountain villages, and through the night. We arrived in Cusco early in the afternoon the following day.

 Cusco is an amazing city. It was once the capitol of the Incan Empire, until the Spanish invasion in 1533. Now the streets are packed with tourists and Peruvians a like. Walking down any street you’ll get offered plenty of cheap hour-long massages, paintings, sunglasses and marijuana. If you sit down anywhere you’ll get swarmed. That was something to get used to. You have to learn to ignore them or you’ll never get anywhere.

Cusco is located high in the mountains at an elevation of

3,400m (11,200ft.) That was quite a climb for us seeing as Lima, being a costal city, is at sea level.  Elevation sickness is very common and can have a large range of side effects. I already had a bad cold so it didn’t hit me too hard. For the first few days, walking any amount of distance was exhausting. You’d go to take a big deep breath in and half way through the breath you just can’t take anymore air in. We came prepared with coca leaves and maca pills. The maca helped a lot.  

            The first night, the hostel we stayed at was very peaceful. It was up on a big hill looking down into the main downtown area of the city. There was a shared balcony outside of our room with a panoramic view. We were some of the only people staying there and we had a 6-person room to ourselves. But the shower had to be about 40F and we wanted to meet more people so the next day we headed down into the city to look for some other hostels we had been told about.

            We ended up at The Point; a great backpackers hostel with great food, tons of people, a few dogs, and a big grassy backyard with a volleyball net. We arrived there on Oct 19 and decided it would be a good place to treat as a home base for a while. We wanted to spend some time in Cusco and the surrounding area. Before long we got pretty comfortable at The Point. We started going to the San Pedro Market for lunch. We could get big plates of rice, meat, veggies, and french fries for only 4 soles (cr. $1.50)

            One day we decided to try and head up to the big white Jesus statue that stands over the city. It looks similar to the one in Rio but much smaller. We climbed up the hill and found ourselves at the entrance to Sacsahuaman, some very popular Inca ruins that sound like they’re pronounced, “Sexywoman.” It was going to cost us quite a lot to get in so we almost turned around but some ranch owners offered to take us horseback riding for 2 hours (for only about $12.)  It ended up that the ranch was right next to Sacsahuaman, and we also get to ride to some other smaller ruins. We had great views of the city and on the walk down; we got to go to the Jesus statue and walk through the ruins. It was quite a good deal.