Reporting in from 12,000 ft

Cusco, Peru

It's been another exciting day in Peru and I can't wait to share what I've done. Once again, the internet is not reliable enough to upload a lot of our own pictures, so those will have to wait until after we return to the US. For now, I'll just try to be as comprehensive and descriptive as possible. At around 5:30AM, we all got out of bed and got into a taxi, half-asleep. By 6:30 AM, we were finished passing through security at Lima's International Airport with the intent of going to Cusco. Cusco, once the grand capital of the Incan empire, located in the middle of the Andes mountains, 3,400 meters above sea level. In addition to being known for its very hilly streets, Cusco is a city where altitude sickness is known to plague many tourists.

The one hour flight provided some of the most beautiful views I've ever seen from an airplane. Below us we could see the hills and mountains that poked through the layer of clouds, and in the distance we could see the snow-capped peaks of the incredibly tall Andes Mountains. To land in Cusco, we only needed to descend a few thousand feet from our cruising altitude. Once we landed, we were immediately greeted with the clear blue sky, in contrast to cloudy Lima. The temperature was also much colder than in Lima, but it was a nice break from the scalding heat that we've been having in New England for the past few weeks. From the airport, the hotel's chauffeur took us through the tightly packed streets of Cusco and gave us a little bit of Incan and Peruvian history as he took us to our hotel, the Incarri Hostal.

Our hotel, which looks like an unwelcoming gate on the narrow street outside, is actually very nice. It spans two buildings and has two Italian styled courtyards, one with a stone plaza area and another with a garden. Although we didn't yet get our room at this point, we had a chance to relax for a few minutes in the courtyard. By 10:30, we were out and ready to explore the city. After walking for about 20 minutes on some narrow cobblestone streets, we found ourselves in Cusco's grand square. Although the square is only three or four blocks away from our hotel, the combination of being at a high altitude, being bombarded with direct equatorial sunlight, and walking up and down the hilly streets got us quite tired. In the main square, we enjoyed the nice and interesting views of the very historic city as dozens of street merchants, shoe shiners, and wannabe tourist photographers bombarded us in attempt to sell us their services. From the square, which is situated at a high altitude relative to the rest of the city, we could see the surrounding hills, forests, and villages. These beautiful views of rural Peru reminded me a lot of our travels in Sicily, where villages like Caccamo are very similar to Cusco.

With some further exploration of the streets surrounding the square, we found a nice restaurant where I had an absolutely delicious chicken sandwich. The wonderful quality of the food and the cleanliness of the dining area made us decide to return to the same place again for dinner. Before we continued our exploration of the city, we stopped at a McDonald's located conveniently in the main square so my brother could have some food without complaining about its alien-ness.

Santo Domingo Cathedral

The major attraction of the day had to be the massive Cathedral of Santo Domingo that towers over the city's central square. When we got inside, an English-speaking tour guide started to give us our own personal tour. Although her English wasn't the best, we learned a great deal of history and information about the cathedral and appreciated her efforts. Very quickly, we learned that the building is actually a collection of three churches, the main cathedral, the Iglesia de la Sagrada Familia, and the Iglesia del Triunfo. Our tour guide claimed that the Iglesia del Triunfo, ordered built by legendary Spanish explorer Francisco Pizzaro, was the very first Catholic cathedral built in the Americas. After some research, we determined it was actually only the first church built in the conquered city of Cusco. I guess that this shows how people like to embellish the facts about their local tourist attractions to make them seem more interesting. Nonetheless, the entire complex was fascinating.

The religious establishment, similarly to the Franciscan monastery in Lima, really highlighted some ironies in the church. The ornate church itself was built by the Incans that the invading Spaniards enslaved, the altars are made of a very rare type of wood that is now extinct, the frames of the paintings throughout the church are coated in 18 karat gold (stolen from the Incans), and there is a full, sedan-sized automobile for the bishop made out of pure silver. At this point it feels like the churches of the past were built only to give the clergy a luxurious life while they let the poor Incans starve in the streets. 

At the conclusion of the tour, we were so tired that we promptly returned to our hotel for a ninety minute break. Even though we had only walked a few kilometers, the altitude made us feel like we had just finished climbing Mt. Everest. The hotel staff were incredibly nice and helped us arrange for transportation for tomorrow morning's trip to the train station, and for the return trip in three days. They even tried to hire us a cheap driver who could give a comprehensive tour of the city, but we had to refuse because the driver wanted to bring his young son along in the already tiny car. The child would also be the sixth in a five-passenger car, making it potentially dangerous to drive around. Instead of getting a tour of the overall city, we decided to explore the neighborhood around the main square in a bit more depth. 

By the time we even got to the main square, we were slightly tired and hungry, so we decided to have dinner at that place we had the small lunch. We were the only ones in the restaurant (it was only 4PM), but we got excellent service and scrumptious food. The dish I ordered was Pollo Supremo (Supreme Chicken). With this relatively cheap dish, I got a large, juicy, bread crumbed chicken cutlet, some hot-dog bits, a cooked banana, rice, and fries. The meal, which was very good (Except for the fries), helped us rejuvenate and prepare for the extended walking that lay ahead. For the next two hours, we just wandered around the area with no destination in mind. The sun was setting at this hour, but because the mountains cast very large shadows, some areas were much more lit than others, making for some interesting views (and some beautiful pictures). 

Some of the most fascinating places we wandered off into were these marketplaces that started off in the streets as tiny entranceways, but connect to massive courtyards in the middle of buildings that have dozens of vendors. We only ended up buying a wall rug, but we saw a variety of other goods that we could buy in the future if we got better deals. I tried to play some traditional Incan musical instruments, I tried some authentic-looking Incan winter wear (August is the coldest month of the year in Peru), and I browsed through some of the hand-crafted wood souvenirs carved and painted by the locals. In addition to these marketplaces, we also saw a few different church plazas, we saw the children of Peru rush onto streets as they were dismissed from schools (at 6PM), and we got to take a peek at the luxurious Monasterio hotel close to the main square. 

(Wide) Streets of Cusco

I have to say, the neighborhood around Cusco's main square was a lot like the downtown area of Bratislava, Slovakia. In both Bratislava and Cusco, a central square is surrounding by narrow, cobblestone streets filled with restaurants, souvenir shops, and tourist information centers. 

By 6:30PM it got very dark and we decided to walk back to the hotel for the last time. Once we arrived at around 6:45, we were all absolutely exhausted. We only walked a distance of 10km (6 miles) throughout the day, but it felt like we finished a long 20 mile hike through the woods. I'm now lying down here in the hotel room, hoping to catch up on some sleep. Tomorrow, we'll once again be waking up at 5AM, but this time to get to a train station where the Vistadome train, operated by PERU Rail, will take us to the magnificent Incan ruin of Macchu Pichu. After spending about 7 hours at the ruins, we'll take a train partially back to the village of Ollantaytambo, where we'll spend the night and following day. 

So far, the trip has been wonderful, and I feel like I'm enjoying myself a lot more than I would have in the past. Our trip to the UAE earlier this year really made me appreciate the idea that travel is about the journey and not the destination. On almost every stretch of this trip so far, I've found everything, from the grand cathedral in Cusco to the new freeways in Peru, incredibly fascinating. Once you can appreciate the idea that vacation doesn't necessarily mean luxurious paradise (but rather inquisitive exploration), travel can be a much more reliably enjoyable experience. 

I can't guarantee I'll post again tomorrow as we may not have internet in  Ollantaytambo, but I'll try my best to keep you all updated. I'll have several hours on the train rides to write an entry, but it's not going to be posted until I get access. Until then, I'm off to explore the ruins of an ancient empire!