We flew to Cusco via Lima on Saturday morning of May 19. The host of our AIRBNB Appartment had told us that he could pick us up from the airport, but when we arrived, nobody was there. 

Mavic and Miriam started to get in touch via texting. He said there was an emergency in the family and they were all in the hospital, but that he would come. After about 20 minutes still nobody who looked like he would be looking for us. Miriam then texted “We are waiting at the exit, I am the one with the pink hair”, after which he then arrived within a few minutes. He took us then to the apartment where his partner was already waiting. They gave us a great introduction into the place and suggested several things to visit.

First day, Nalini’s birthday

The next morning we would leave to Machu Picchu at 5:00 in the morning and the next day to the sacred valley of the Inkas, we had train ticket with Inka Rail already, but we realised that we needed additional tickets for entering the site. There was only one official office that sell these tickets so we had to go downtown this afternoon. We had to go there anyway, because it was Nalini’s birthday, and she was working in a party hotel in Cusco, so Miriam wanted to bring her a birthday present personally.

On the way through Cusco’s old town looking for the party hotel where Nalini worked we discussed this holiday’s photo competition and a theme for it. The theme was decided to be “Scruffy dog in front of old building”, and the winning photo was instantly taken by Miriam.

After a lot of huffing and puffing, Nalini’s hotel turned out to be on top of a mountain, we finally reached the place. It was hidden behind a high wall, nobody would expect a party place there. The guard looked at us old people very suspiciously, but after we explained that we wanted to meet somebody who worked here, he was very helpful, and let us in.

Second day, Machu Picchu and the Sacred Valley

See here for details

Third day, Exploring Cusco

First thing was to get a decent breakfast. We took a taxi to the Plaza de arms and found a nice place with a balcony overlooking the plaza.

From here we made plans for the day, first we would book some tours for the next days, then go around to see the highlights of town.

The visit of the travel agent revealed that a trip to Titi Kaka lake would not be much fun. One night in the bus to get there, 6 hours on the lake and another night to go back. We therefore decided to do some shorter trips around Cusco instead, so we booked the Humantay Lake for the next day and the Rainbow Mountains for the day after.

We then got a taxi to go to Sacsayhuaman, the old Inka fortress, originally shaped in the form of a Jaguar, and a key military facility in the resistance of the Inkas against the Spaniards. Unfortunately it has been very much destroyed afterwards by the Spanish who used the stones to build their own buildings.

 

What a waste, caused by around 180 conquistadores. One would wonder what would have happened if the Spaniards would have never arrived. When they did there was a civicl war tearing the Inkas apart, it appears that humans can just not live without destroying each other. We need to find a parallel universe to explore alternatives to world history.

Anyway, we had enough of fortresses for the day, so it was time to plan the rest of the day.

We walked back to town, first through a steep valley that must have been the original access road to the fortress, then through old town.

We tried to get to a second peak with another attraction, climbed endless narrow stairs, resting every 10 altitude meters again. When it became clear that it was extremely far on foot and even some locals, who were carrying merchandise on the stairs suggested to take a taxi, we thought of alternatives. When a little scruffy black dog attacked Martin from the back and bit him, we decided to go back given that there were hundreds of dogs waiting on next section of the way up.

Back in historic Cusco, we found the Coca Museum by accident. Martin and Miriam went to have a look. Mavic spent the time sitting on a bench in front of a nearby church, fending off souvenir vendors.

We found a nice french restaurant in a back street where we finally sat down for lunch, after which we continued the way down and finally spent some time in the many shops and markets that have souvenirs, mostly looking at alpaca wool products and at rings for Miriam.

 

Fifth day, Cusco again

Yesterday night Mavic got a text that the trip to the Rainbow mountains was cancelled because of a transport strike. So instead of getting up at 4:00 we could stay in bed and recover from the last hike. Martin had thought about cancelling the trip anyway because he was quite exhausted and the long bus ride on uncompfortable chairs had not made the pinched nerve much better, on the contrary.

So it was Cusco again. We got up around lunch time and then had to walk to downtown Cusco, in the middle of the street, since there was indeed not a single car on the road. It reminded Martin a lot of the oil crisis in the 1970s when weekends in Germany cars were banned. We had brunch on the way in what turned out to be a pretty nice fish restaurant. Luckily for Miriam they had one dish that did not contain fish. Martin had a trout again, this time fried, awesomely delicious.

Martin and Mavic went to the history museum, Miriam wanted to join but had lost her ticket when she had went back to the apartment earlier to fetch something else she had forgotten.

Then we went around town, did quite a lot of shopping, and ended the day with a nice meal in a posh restaurant at the Plaza de Armas. Miriam and Martin had Alpaca, Mavic some ordinary cow.

 

What we missed

We missed the visit to the Rainbow Mountains and to Titi Kaka Lake. So we will have to come back.