Cusco & the Sacred Valley

After a uneventful, though sleepless day and night in the air we arrived in Cusco, Peru to some wonderful views of the mountains we would be hiking through in just a few days.

Cusco itself is a very different city from most of the ones I have seen in Latin America. It is known as the "Navel of the World", having something to do with the fact that it was the Inca capital and center of culture at the time. For the most part it is a very beautiful city, much cleaner and prettier than most. Unfortunately this has a lot to do with its touristyness. Instead of hearing 'sombrillas, paraguas, sombrillas' (umbrellas, umbrellas) on every corner like in Costa Rica, you hear 'pretty lady, you want a massage? massage, manicure, pedicure, waxing??' NO. No Thank you.

View of the city from hostel roof

Hostel

We spent day one wandering the city, picking up some groceries, fuel for our trek, bus tickets for after the trek, etc. We had cocktail hour on the rooftop patio of our hostel in the sunshine and Matt & I got the pleasure of introducing Ashley & Steven to Pisco/Piscola. Our readers from the fall may remember Pisco as the particularly nasty South American hard alcohol of choice. When mixed with Coca-Cola and some ice it is...tolarable. And a good cultural experience right?

Our plan for the next day was to visit the 'Sacred Valley of the Incas'. Its an area surrounding Cusco that is a) beautiful and b) has lots of ruins. Most people visit it as part of a day long tour on a large bus with a guide and lots of fellow gringos. We try to avoid such experiences at all costs, so when we got a nice taxi driver taking us accross town in Cusco day 1 I asked him how much it would be to get a taxi for the day. After explaining what it was we wanted to do Beliasario offered himself for $60! Hired! He drove us around for about 8 hours, stopping whenever we wanted to take pictures, explaining to us what we were seeing, and answering my wierd questions. No regrets about not being on that tour bus!