• Bron PlaskowskiTravelerIt Started As A 2 Week Cruise
    Mary had a little alpaca, I think that's how the nursery rhyme goes in Peru.
    Your not going anywhere quickly from this village.That is a murky brown river.The sign says it all.We were given coca tea when we arrived at the hotel. It is supposed to help with the altitude.Coca leaves, your tongue starts to go numb after a few minutes of chewing.This was on my phone this morning, I'm glad it never made it as far as Lima.The view from our room.The church of San Blas.This was the only fountain I saw in the town.They must get some rain to need a gully that size.There are lots of streets like this, hard going at this altitude.1A pie with attitude.A lot of the time if your not going down your going up.Two churches for the price of one in the main square. The Cusco cathedral on the left.With so many shops selling almost the same things, it's surprising anyone makes a living.They took over one side of the road and the traffic just had to wait.

    A Touristy Flight

    February 1 in Peru ⋅ ☁️ 9 °C

    I'd read several articles on the internet saying that Lima was just a big city that you should bypass and spend more time at other locations in Peru. However, we really enjoyed our stay, there were lots of things to see, do and drink. We did stick to the tourist areas but there weren't really that many tourists. The areas were busy though with locals and we felt comfortable and safe at all times. We could have easily spent a few more days here.

    We were up at 5am for our 1 hour, morning flight to Cuzco. A relative lay in compared to what's coming up in the next two days but I'll worry about that tomorrow. Having not really noticed that many tourists in Quito and Lima, when boarding the plane today all that changed. Around 90% of those on today's flight were foreigners and about 40% of those were Chinese or Korean. Including one Chinese couple with their young son who while waiting in departures had a blazing row for about 5 mins until she stormed off.

    Today was the first Saturday since getting on the cruise that we didn't have something planned so I was able to catch the Wolves v Aston Villa game, at 12:30 local time, 5hrs behind the UK.

    For almost the next two weeks we are going to be at altitue so it's out with the layers including fleeces and jackets. Today's temperature in Cuzco was 17 degrees dropping to 7 degrees overnight. We are currently at around 3,400m and climbing the 3 floors to our room had us out of breath each time we did it.

    I was surprised how built up the town was and how much of a historical centre there is. There was life here before tourism. We spent the afternoon exploring the narrow streets, we came across a large band and about 50 dancers parading through the streets, people out selling, paintings, local handicrafts, tours, photo opportunities with people in traditional dress with their alpacas and dozens and dozens of women offering 1 hour massages for 20 Soles, about £4.50. There must be a catch there somewhere, maybe I need to explore that further!

    For dinner I had stir fried vegetables with alpaca. It had the texture of beef but the taste of something else I couldn't quite put my finger on, it was very good though. They did have guinea pig on the menu but when I was shown a picture of how it came, it put even me right off. It looked like a spatchcocked giant rat with its little head and little feet still on. Though everyone says it's lovely.    Read more