The Joys of Cusco

We have spent the past several days in the beautiful city of Cusco. We arrived via a flight alongside the Andes mountains, snow covered peaks reaching the clouds for the majority of the flight. To land the plane had to make an alarming sharp turn, what felt like close to 180 degrees, almost brushing the hillsides and dropping into the valley. This was not like any other plane ride either of us had been on before.

We were taken to our hostel, a cozy, colorful building tucked among many, high on the hillside overlooking the central plaza and cathedrals. It is complete with a rooftop terrace, skylights, a courtyard with trees and plants, and shuttered windows. The only drawback is the steep climb you must make to reach it from town, especially when you are feeling the effects of going from sea level to over 10,000 feet in elevation in less than two hours. We are out of breath every time we reach home, but hopefully this has helped prepare us for our trek.

To reach town we walk down a few narrow cobblestone alleys, carefully watching our step as the stones are polished smooth. At least one of us slips and loses our balance for a moment every time we head down to the city center. The narrow streets are lined with shops, eateries, and travel companies, and every twenty feet it seems we are approached by someone with a menu or artwork, or something else they are trying to sell.  It is especially hard to walk away from the children that approach us with puppets, candy, etc, which they are trying to sell. Also the streets are lined with stray dogs, harmless, they stick to their own business luckily. However the city is quite beautiful, full of cobblestone streets, stone walls, old buildings full of detail, and small parks. It is hard to describe how wonderful it really is here, but we like it so much we have booked another three nights when we return from our trek to Machu Picchu. Which, by the way, we are beginning our five day journey tomorrow morning, bright and early at 4:30 am! After much difficulty deciding on an agent to book through (there are hundreds of tour operators to go through) we are happy with our choice, and so excited to begin this adventure!


Hey this is Abbey, still alive Mom! haha.  Wanted to share an awesome experience Jenny and I had at the local marketplace.    We had spent most of our time around the Plaza de Armas before that, which had a strong tourist feel to it. It is after all the main plaza of the city.  Right around the plaza there are nicer restaurants and shops, where you don´t exactly see many local Peruvians really eating/shopping at.  They are mostly trying to sell things outside the doors or trying to get you to eat at their restaurant.  Needless to say you kind of wonder where the local people go! So we made our way to the central market to check it out. When we walked in, we were shocked. We were greeted by a meat stand with about 6 whole pig heads staring at us.  The smell of raw meat was overwhelming, so many dead carcasses were hanging off hooks, some of them we weren´t sure what animal they were.  There were stacks of what we think were cut off donkey snouts, their teeth almost looking like they were smiling at us. Testicles hanging on hooks, live/dead frogs, whole fish, whole chickens with their talons sticking in the air are some examples. No ice to be found,  and meat was just piled around in this warm weather complete with flies.  Jenny and I seriously got a little nauseous from the smell and wondered how these people can tolerate meats that aren´t prepared in the most sanitary way.  There were women sawing off pieces of carcasses with handsaws and their bare hands. It was then that we decided to make our way to the arts and crafts section. Ha.

Further exploring the market, we noticed how this market really had it all.  Flowers, juice stations, food courts with hot cheap meals, clothing, knickknacks, jewelry, and the best smelling fruit section EVER! It was in the fruit section that we made our first ¨friend¨.  It is funny how you can meet people when you are in a foreign and random place.  We had a craving for bananas and this guy overheard me ask Jenny, ¨¨Where can we find big bananas?¨ The guy chipped in and told us to try the small ones.  We weren´t too crazy about the small bananas and he assisted us to find some regular ones and bargain for a good price. Through conversation we found that he hadn´t had the joy of walking through the meat section yet, so we showed him.  Great conversation starter!  He asked if we wanted to wander along with him to sightsee Cusco, since he was new to the city.  We found out his name is Joey, from California, and he has been traveling around the world for 6 years.  It was so interesting to talk to someone so young with that experience.  To make a long story short, Joey asked if we wanted to meet up with him later that night at his hostel´s bar.  We had an awesome time that night, it was amazing to be around people from places all around the world.  We met people from England, Czech Republic, Israel and more. Jenny and I stayed with eachother the entire time and had a blast dancing and just talking with people.  We had lunch with Joey and a guy from Israel today, and we all went to have a one hour long massage for a whopping 6 dollars.  Things are cheap here if you can gather.

Anyways I´m heading to bed because Jenny and I are being picked up at 4:30am tomorrow morning to start our 5 day trek to Machu Picchu. So excited!! Hope the altitude doesn´t kick my butt too much.