Cusco City

Voy a visitar todo este sitio y mas! No puedo esperar! Ven Julio 2008!!!

I’ve been here with 19 other students from my school, 5 teachers and 2 people who recorded a part of the trip. My stay in Peru was 22 days, of which 12 in Cuzco itself. What an amazing place. Completely shocking offcourse, are the slums around the city, but the people that live there (we’ve actually been in teh sulms) are extreamely kind and helpfull. The rest of Cuzco city is beautiful. All the old Inca-temples have been destroyed, and replaced with churches, but the first floor is almost always still in Inca style. Mostly because the Inca’s buit so strong, that the buildings survive alomst every earthquake.

Finding places to eat is very simple as well, and the food is (almost) everywhere very good. Not so adventurous, try Jack’s Café. An Autralian Café with such big portions of food, that it’s hard to eat everything, but it’s the food we’re used to (Milkshakes, hamburgers). Don’t go looking for an McDonald’s, since Lima has the only one in the whole of Peru (if I understood it right when our guide told us). And off course eating in Peru isn’t expensive (for us). For 16 sol or less (4 euro’s when I was there, no idea how many dollars) you have a complete meal and drinks etcetera.

• Saqsayhuaman: Go during the solar turn (or how it’s called) because then there’s a festivity (forgot the name….) with loads of dancing, music and teksts that are in Quechua, but that has got a charm aswell
• Lovely area to walk (guide recommended off course)
• Loads of stuff in the city itself
• And probably much much much more, since I’m no expert.

Anyway, I would go back anytime, if I had the money, and the company. If you’re doubting whether to go or not, stop and pack your bags!! It’s a true lifetime experience. I’m not this crazy about places very easily, but I’ve locked Cuzco deep in me, and still love it, eventhough it’s been almost 2 years since I’ve been there.

We had great food for $3 dollars at a little restaurant in CUS. It was a small restaurant, i forgot the name but the owners were very friendly and they had some musician who came in and played music with his charango and the wooden flute (forgot that name). then he sold his CDs to the customers for $10! it was a little crazy to buy a CD for $10 USD and pay peanuts for a great dinner that was worth more than $10 USD.

Then the next night i found a street vendor selling Alpaca grilled on a stick (anticuchos de alpaca), it was delicious, tasted like steak but just a little different. I think it was like 1.5 soles (which was like $.50 USD).

Greatest city ever!

That is all I have to say on the matter.

I wanna see if what they’re saying is true. whatever it is that I read on the Celestine Prophecy and whatever they shown me in Travel channel Weird journey… and the breathtaking photographs and videos Ive seen is worth seeing in person…

Cusco is sort of base camp as you make the trek over the Inca Trail to Macchu Pichu. The whole experience has been Disney-fied over the past few years, evidently, and you feel it on the trail and in Cusco. But it’s congenial and welcoming, like much of my experience in Peru.

The old inca capital, this is where most people go on the way to Macchu Pichu.

It has the temple of the sun, and has an old world charm.

The food is good in the restaurants in the Plaza de armas and around the place.

We stayed somewhere up the hill a bit, which was a big mistake because the road was blocked and we had to walk uphill to bed each night :S