IV. SA Peru/W1a, 5d: Puno & Cusco EN

Tu, 21.03. Puno/Cusco
Puno is a small cute town directly located on the Peruyan side of Lake Titicaca. You get a first impression of Peru there, can already see the typical tuktuks and similar to Bolivia the fried chicken 'pollo a la canesta' is also pretty popular here.
Having arrived in the hostel we also had again Internet and a TV so that we could finally inform ourselves about the current situation in Peru - Cusco and all areas south of Lima have not been affected by El Niño and the inondations so far but the whole north of Lima up to Ecuador has been completely flooded - that will probably also affect my travel plans.
In Puno itself there was not so much to see so that we took an 8h bus to Cusco the next morning after enjoying a yummy breakfast incl. scrambled eggs; talking about buses Peru is really of high quality.
Concerning the prices for sure we did not take the super expensive Touri buses but also not the cheapest one but for 35S/roughly 10€ got Cama seats in the upper first row with panoramic view, free beverage and stewardess. Peru is really good in this respect - good service, punctual, safe, a lot of space, clean toilets, comfortable check-in with passport, luggage voucher, bus station tax and even electrical USB plugs to charge phones. Thanks to the low season the bus was also almost empty with only 5 people, they had Heidi on the TV and all that for just about 35S/10€ - oh it is so nice to be able to treat yourself in cheap countries ;)
Arriving in Cusco we immediately knew: welcome to
the touri hype and touri town: one ticket booth and Restaurant after the other, people constantly and everywhere trying to sell you all kinds of stuff and a lot of tourists and backpackers :P
But apart from that it is a really nice city with nice buildings, viewpoints and especially Plaza de Armas is really beautiful and impressive. Our hostel was also really nice with an amazing hot shower, breakfast incl omelette and as it is often the case here pretty high located with a lot of stairs - a good training for us; we were already acclimitased and used to the altitude but the many stairs, hills and walking were a good preparation for our 5d Salkantay Trek.

We, 22.03. Cusco - Orga & City
Cusco itself is a 350,000 habitants town located at an altitude of 3,416m.
That day was another orga day, for our Salkantay Trek in particular but also in general about what to see and do - in Cusco alone there was already so much to see.
Additionally, we also wanted to see the Sacred Valley of the Inkas with Pisaq, Urubamba, Ollantaytambo and Chinchero as well as Moras/Moray and the salt mines and thus booked 2 day tours for Thursday and Friday. Saturday as chill and preparation day, then in total almost 6 days for the trek and Machu Picchu plus another relaxation day after, another day for the hike to Rainbow Mountain as well as a food day for the local specialities Ceviche (raw fish), Cuy (guinea pig) and Alpaca; shortly: we would probably spent already 2 weeks here in Cusco incl relaxation :)
In general, Cusco is pretty cold, later on it was also raining pretty bad incl hail - a good test for our equipment and clothes but we still bought a good poncho later on and had a nice almuerzo at the local market San Blas.

Th, 23,03. Cusco - Sacred Valley of the Inkas/Ollantaytambo
As already mentioned, Cusco is very touristy and thus unfortunately also very expensive. Of course you then do also 1 or 2 tours here, there is a lot to see in Cusco itself but also in the surroundings and thanks to my negotiation skills it was again cheaper ;)
That day we thus went to the popular 'Valle Sagrado de los Incas' (Sacred Valley of the Inkas) and that was really very interesting because we learned a lot about the Inkan history.
Together with our guide Jonathan and Team Puma (which means power in Inka language) we first had a roughly 2h bus drive to the town Pisaq and a typical touri market. The landscape was already really nice with a lot of high mountains and terraces - for the Inkas nature was always very important and the river is also called 'Rio Sagrado' (Sacred River).
Some information about the Inkas in general: the so called Inka Trail is not only the really famous touri trek to Machu Picchu but goes all the way from Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile until Argentina and is a combination of several longer paths. The Inkas were very sophisticated and their terraces had 3 functions:
First army-wise, to protect the mountains against earth slides and erosion; then for economic reasons, to work with different agricultural micro climates (below closed warmer, above open cooler) and finally cultural, for architecture and ornament.
Close to Pisaq there is also one of the Inka's biggest graveyards of up to 3,000 tombs. We also visited a silver exhibition, tried the typical InkaKola as well as yummy freshly fried sweetcorn with cheese and picante.
Ollantaytambo lies within awesome landscape and has a pretty popular archealogical Inka site. We learned that the Inkas stored dried fruits in the mountains of up to 500y and created a natural fridge by using windows and air circulation. Moreover, they transported granit stones of up to 16t weight to the mountains - however, the site was never completed as the Spanish arrived and stopped everything. You can also see faces in the mountains to better present the sun like in other sites.
Chinchero is with 3,800m a bit higher located so that the Inkas are closer to the gods. There are also many terraces and we learned a lot about the local and very natural method to produce clothes - all in difficult, 2-4m lasting hand work. There were also again lamas and guinea pigs and due to the altitude it was very cold and already dark around 6pm.

Fr, 24.03. Cusco - Maras/Moray
We had our second tour that day.
First we drove again to Chinchero and learned that there are 1,200 different types of potatoes in Peru and that, similar to Bolivia, the cultivation of quinoa and beans is very popular and important.
After that we went to Moray at an altitude of 3,300m, another archealogical site with round ('quecho') terraces, where the Inkas used to find a lot of potatoes in the beginning. It can get as hot as 30* in the middle and the Inkas used it primarily to study and to find out which plants can grow at which altitude, the study of the soil was super important; instructed as usual by the most important Inka Patchacute.
Maras is another small town where we visited a typical salt shop including free chocolate and sweetcorn sampling, pretty yummy ;)
We then went to 'Minas del Sal' (salt mines) where we learned again a lot about the Inkas. In total there were more than 5,355 pools owned by the local population and the salt is mainly used for Cusco but also exported to the USA and France.

Sa, 25.03. Cusco - City & Shopping
As already mentioned, Saturday was the orga, shopping and relaxation day.
After a last briefing in the morning we met with two friends of Felix from Hongkong for lunch before equipping ourselves with a lot of food including fresh and dried fruits, crackers, cookies, nuts etc on the market and Orion Supermarkt - there are 3 meals a day included but apparently the portions are not that big, the time between the meals is with 5-7h quite long and especially with the altitude and long distances to hike you get hungry quite easily and then better be safe than sorry - and the bag with only 5kg permitted luggage for the donkey was already almost full ;)Read more