Cusco

There is no doubt that Cusco is a tourist town. You constantly have people approaching you trying to sell you anything and everything on the street. Once, you say “no thank-you” however, they do leave you alone. There are taxis everywhere as well ready and willing to take you wherever you want to go. You have to negotiate the taxi fares upfront as the taxis are not metered. The city has a great history tying back to the Inca times, but there is not enough space to go into details. The city is surrounded by many Inca ruins and deserves an extended stay here just to visit all the sites. We did not have enough time for all the sites, and ended up picking Tipon. The Tipon ruins are challenging to get to. We hired a taxi to take us there and back. Once in Tipon, the ride up to the ruins is a very uneven, bumpy one-way dirt road. Our driver was great in navigating up the road and he waited an hour for us while we toured around the site. We hired a guide, who we discovered is studying archaeology. This site was amazing and represents an irrigation system with fountains and water channels. It’s disputed whether this was an agricultural centre or a water temple; either way it‘s an amazing site. Water for half of the site is fed by an underground spring and still runs today. The other half was fed by a nearby glacier and unfortunately this glacier no longer exists. The site is situated on a mountain side and our guide explained that each terrace level has a slightly different temperature given the elevation. This site is absolutely impressive.

Cusco the city is full of museums, restaurants and plazas. The roads are mainly cobblestone, but some of the major streets are paved. The infrastructure in sections could really use some work as there are pot holes everywhere. To control traffic speed, there are speed bumps placed along the roads at what appears to be random places. Traffic here is quite chaotic by our standards. While it looks like there are lines painted for lanes on some roads, the cars seem to just drive wherever they can find room. We never witnessed an accident though. There is a lot of horn honking going on.

The market in Cusco is well worth a visit and we were warned to be aware of pickpockets. This is true of any market you go to and being away of your surroundings is always important. The market here also serves the locals and provides not only handcrafted items but food items, including meat, cheese, fruits, vegetables, etc., spices, toiletries and so much more. We found the prices reasonable and bargaining is always recommended.

We both tried some local Peruvian dishes here. Z tried the guinea pig, or coy as it’s called here. I just couldn’t stomach trying this as all I could think about was my pet guinea pigs growing up and that somehow Z was eating a cousin of Charlie. He said it was alright, but probably wouldn’t order it again. I tried the Lomo Saltaldo, which is a very flavourful, tasty beef dish that I think rivals that of the beef in Argentina. In addition to the beef, it is mixed with onions, peas and tomatoes, kinda like a stir fry. YUM!!

To give a better idea of how cheap things are down here, we purchased a travel four pack of Kleenex brand tissues and it cost us the equivalent of $0.88USD. It’s insane at how low the prices are down here compared to back home. I'm sure these prices though aren't that low for the average working Peruvian.

We ended our experience in Cusco with a cultural show which was part of a tourist card we purchased. The tourist card cost $130 soles each ($46CAD) and provides admission to several different museums and quite a few of the Inca ruins immediately surrounding Cusco. Anyway, this cultural show was incredible. They had local music and dancing with very elaborate costumes. It was a great way to end this leg of the journey. Cusco is a very beautiful city with a lot of Spanish influence and probably requires at least five days to fully appreciate and explore.

Next up…Lima.