Inca Ruins & Altitude

Daph with girl and lama outside hotel
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Got up early and headed off to the airport. The night before the city was very quite but in the morning the city was buzzing with activity. Buses and taxis everywhere getting people to work.

Daph was smart enough to request seats on the left side of the plane since they apparently provided the best views of the Andes as we flew from Lima to Cuzco. On the way there we saw several mountains literally towering above the clouds.

Adjusting to Altitude

Shoe shine boy in alley
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Cuzco itself is beautiful with a typical Spanish town square at its center. The square itself consists of a large grass square with a fountain in the middle surrounded by two story Spanish buildings with balconies overlooking the square. However, like other Spanish town squares the main focal point is the church. The one in Cuzco’s square de Armes took more than 100 years to build. Sadly many of the stones used to build it came from Inca palaces and monuments. In fact, the Inca Palace used to stand where the church now stands. The streets leading out from the town square are narrow cobble stoned roads and, as you might expect for town in the middle of the Andes, very steep.

main square in cusco
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The rest of the day was spent looking around – albeit slowly. We went for a coke and soup in the central square and looked through the artist stores in the San Blas part of town. This is the artistic area of town and the area where we were staying. It’s a good thing it was close to town because we were struggling a bit on our first day with the altitude. Nothing serious mind you, just a mild headache and a constant feeling of being out of breath.

We also had a chance to  try our first cup of Coca tea – this is tea made with cocaine leaves. Apparently it takes several tones of these leaves to even make a little bit of what we call cocaine in the states. The tea is a traditional drink and said to give you energy and help you to deal with the altitude. It comes in a tea pot full of green coca leaves and hot water. The tea itself smells strange – hard to describe but I didn’t think it smelled terribly appetizing.  It tasted fine though and I’m not sure if it was psychological or not but I do think I felt better after I drank it.

DSC01869
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Later in the day we slowly made our way down to the town square where we had soup and a coke on a balcony overlooking the square. Great people watching while we ate what turned out to be a very good soup. We had been drinking water constantly through out the day and just couldn’t seem to get enough liquids. The soup really hit the spot.

We then made arrangements to go and see Machu Picchu on the Monday and to take a bus to Puno/Lake Titicacca on the Tuesday.

With the altitude and the early morning flights we were in bed by 6pm and didn’t wake up till 7am the next morning. A great sleep in our quiet little hotel (Rumi Punta)