Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
We arrived into Cusco after a hellish night in Lima airport and grabbed a taxi into town. We already had somewhere in mind to stay although the taxi driver was less keen. According to him people had been murdered in the area and it was very dangerous. He was determined to take us somewhere else, but we stuck with the murderous hostel! On arrival we found a nice safe, clean and quiet hostel in a well lit area very near the main square. Surprise, surprise. After a little time to settle in we went to meet the family for lunch. Having refuelled we decided to have a little wander around the city and found a nice little market place down a side alley. There everybody bought a range of souvenirs from hats to bags, from chess sets to Rorys energy sapping stone monkey statue (we showed it to a Peruvian lady later in the day and she wouldn't touch it with her bare skin because they drain your energy and give it to the owner!). Laden with souvenirs we decided to get a taxi up to Sacsayhuaman one of the Incan ruins. There we met our guide for the afternoon. A very serious man with a very serious beard! Hearing about the ruins was very interesting and made more comedic by the guides classic outbursts; "Incas smart, organised. Spanish stupid lazy" and "HWHY??". We also got our first feel for how crazy the inkas actually were! Dragging 150 tonne stones for miles to build a temple they only used for special occasions. They also represented animals in their walls mum and the girls particularly impressed with the giant guinea pig! Also good were the llama and jaguar paw! I only wish we could have seen how it looked when it was unruined by the spanish, it must have been immense as it took them anything up to 112years to build it completely. After some photo opportunities we walked down the hill back into Cusco and stopped off on the way at 2nations. It was juices all around and then down to book whitewater rafting for the morning. Angharad was especially excited about going rafting with her big brother! In the evening we had a nice meal as the 6 of us although Tilly was fading fast as a result of jet lag and altitude!
- comments