Cuzco

After a long, arduous and horrible journey we eventually made it Cuzco. It was by far the worst bus ride we have taken so far on the trip. The bus was that cold that Mel and I were both wearing hat, gloves, 2 or 3 t-shirts and a fleece, and our teeth were still chattering. Half way through our journey we also saw a bus crash, another bus heading to Cuzco, on which we later found out were two people from the UK we were sharing a dorm with in La Paz. The girl had factured her forearm and dislocated her wrist.

When we arrived we hopped in a cab and made it to the main plaza, where grabbed some breakfast, and as we hadn't eaten a proper meal for 24 hours, we decided to splash out. We sat out on the balcony of a lovely cafe overlooking the stunning central square of Cuzco munching our breakfast, it was a very pleasant experience after being stuck on a bus for so long.

We decided that we would take it easy during our first day in Cuzco, and just wonder the streets and get to know the city. Our first stop was to confirm our booking with the agent we had booked our Salkantay/Machu Picchu trek through. We had to meet at the office the following day at 6pm for a pre-trek meeting.

FroWe continued to visit the many stunning sights that Cuzco town had to offer. The Plaza de Armas is probably the most impressive town square we have seen in all of South America, it's only downside is the hoards of tourists that arrive by the bus load and the very persistant touts trying to sell things to the tourists. Unfortunately, as we are gringos, we get pulled into the same category as the tourists and the touts mistake us for having money and still try to sell us things.

Cuzco is a beautiful little town, full of wonderful squares beautiful norrow winding streets and lots of small children wondering around with llamas of varying size trying to get you to have a photo taken with one of the oversized sheep.

On our second day we visited some of the Inca ruins around the outskirts of Cuzco. There are four in total on the same road, they are called Saqsaywaman, Q´enqo, Pukapukara and Tambomachay. You can catch the bus to Tambomachay, the furthest from town, then walk back to town, visiting the other sites on the way.

Tambomachay is only a small ruin that basically demonstrates the Incas expertise in harnessing water and using it effectively.

The second ruin, a stones throw from Tambomachay, Pukapukara is a much larger site that was used by the Incas as an adminstration centre and fort. The ruins are perched on the edge of a hillside and have impressive views from all angles. As with most Inca ruins there are also your token llamas wondering about munching on the grass.

The third site is a slightly obscure one, Q´enko, pronounced just like the instant coffee, was used a place of worship. It has a huge natural rock formation in the middle, which has a huge cave underneath that was used for the storage of pottery.

The fourth and final site of Saqsaywaman (literally pronounced as "Sexy wowan") was by far the most impressive we'd seen that day. This huge ruin, used by the Incas as a fort, is approx 300m long and is made of zig-zag walls constructed of huge but perfectly carved stones. The worksmanship on the stone is incredible and the stones, despite their abnormal shapes, fit together perfectly. In a different area of the site there is also what appears to be a circular communal area, a bit like a amphitheatre, which archeologists believe used to be a market place.

From Saqsaywaman there are steps that lead directly down to the main square in Cuzco, so we made our way down so as not to miss our meeting. On the way down we came across a small square in which there were about 40 men all dancing and sing a song about women. We couldn't work out the lyrics but it was entertaining and interesting watching them dance around with their sticks. We managed to pull ourselves away after about 20 minutes and made our way to the trek meeting.

Once we got there we met our trekking partners, Ollie and Julian from Melbourne, Jen from San Diego and Megan and Deanna from Calgary. They all seemed like really nice people and we all hit it off straight away. The tour operator were going to pick us up at 5am the following morning, so after the meeting we grabbed some food and made our way back to the hostel for an early night to ensure we were fresh as daisies for the following morning.