Cusco
Our overnight bus that I mentioned in the previous entry arrived in Cusco at 11:30am to glorious sunshine and warm weather, never mind the fact that it’s at 3400m elevation. We have 4 days here before leaving for the 4 day inca trail hike to give plenty of time for acclimatization. I don’t see this being a problem, after being here for 1 day now and walking around the town for most of it and not having any altitude sickness or related issues.
Before we’d even gotten off the bus it was obvious that Cusco is a much nicer place than Nazca, and actually does have colonial buildings, cobble stone streets and almost every building in town has clay tile roofs on them as well, adding to the scenic beauty of being surrounded by hills and mountains in the not so far distance. We spent the day just wandering, no plan, no attempt to see any particular sights and it’s a great city for this. Loads of small streets, archways, colonial churches and lots of open, laid back plazas. The atmosphere is great, only downside is the people trying to sell you things around the plaza de armas, though they aren’t that persistent like in some places (Kowloon, Hong Kong comes to mind there…). The plaza itself is great, surrounded by 2 large, old churches and arch lined buildings on the other sides. Topped off with a green, open, plaza with a fountain in the middle of it.
After that, and lunch, we walked through a couple more plazas, arches and took a lot more photos. This is one of those places where I could walk around all day just taking photos. There’s so many cool buildings, plazas and streets, not to mention the fact that you can go up hills in most direction for different angled views of the city.
We walked up one of the hills just before sunset, great overview of the area…
Other than just wandering around the city, which I will be doing more of, there are several inca sites within easy hiking distance of the city that we will be spending the days before the inca trail visiting, a sort of warm up hike. This area is sounding, and so far looking, great. The inca trail with it’s finish in Machu Picchu will be the climactic end to my stay in the Cusco area, and it’s also the last big adventure activity of my trip I have planned. I have exactly one month today until I will be back in the US, 2 more weeks in Peru and then finishing in Colombia. That hardly seems possible, only one more country to go and I’m done. For this trip anyway….
Tags: Peru, Travel
Adam
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