We have been in Cusco for 3 weeks now. It has been another wonderful experience. We settled in a small apartment a block from Plaza de Armas in the Historic Town which is buzzing with vendors, tourist traps and wonderful restaurants.
Indigenous people dress up for tourist and bring their pet alpacas for a photo op. Everything here is catered to tourists for sure.
Mike and I were affected by the altitude right away (11,152’), I guess since we were coming from Buenos Aires which is at sea level. It was difficult to walk just a couple of blocks, we felt our hearts were going to burst just going up a flight of stairs!
Nonetheless, we immediately booked our first adventure. We wanted to see the 7 Color Mountain a few hours from Cusco. Turns out, our agency told us it was closed, and they diverted us to Palcoyo Mountains (same mountain range, but farther away). The tour started at 4:30 am, they picked us up in the rain and took us 4 hours by bus to Palcoyo Mountains. The ride was a bit bumpy, but the views were magnificent. We arrived to the entrance of the trail, and found out it had snowed all night. People were worried that we were not going to be able to see colors. Mike and I were worried that we were not going to make it to the top! We were going super slow and felt like were were going to die every step. Lack of oxygen at 16 thousand feet is no joke. Mike had horrible headaches and the guides were giving him a mixture of alcohol and eucalyptus and alcohol and anise to fight the altitude sickness. We made it to the top and back alive, but the headaches didn’t go away until we got back to Cusco. It was totally worth it though. The views were spectacular. Seeing those colorful snowy mountains took our breath away.
Back in Cusco, we were feeling better and decided to walk around the city. There is so much to see here: the Machu Picchu Museum, the Theater where we met a dance director who invited us to meet his group in action, the market buzzing with music and energy. We took some time to just stay at different plazas and paint/draw. We met a family who had come to the plaza, mom and kids with their alpacas, dress up to take pictures with tourists. I was trying to paint the Palcoyo Mountains and Mike was starting to draw when the kids surrounded us. They must have been 5 and 6 with and older sister of about 10. They were all asking questions at the same time as they were crawling on top of us to see what we were doing, wanting paper and paint and asking Mike to draw them. It was fun talking to them that morning. Mike was able to get one of the kids on paper before they disappeared with their mom to work the next plaza.
Machu Picchu:
We arrived at Aguas Calientes last week after a beautiful train ride. We stayed in town for a couple of days before getting in the park.
We went to the hot springs and walked around town for the day, looking at beautiful stone art in every corner, and enjoying the sunny weather and waterfalls.
This is one of the most exciting and hardest hikes I’ve ever done. We started the day early morning and got to the park before we could even go up Montaña Machu Picchu.
The hike up took us about 2 hours, we went up the mountain in a cold foggy morning and we loved every step of the way. The stone path was amazing, they put down rocks and made steps in impossible places, cut through boulders; and we were fortunate enough to hike the same path as the incas hundreds of years ago.
When we got to the top, we were higher than the clouds. It was amazing, like we were on top of the world. We stayed there for a while waiting for the clouds to part and give us a peek of the ancient city below. Bit by bit we got glimpses of through the fog and waited patiently as hikers came a left. When the clouds finally parted we were amazed by the beautiful view. We finally hiked down the mountain and walked a bit through the ruins taking in the sites and feeling exhausted but happy.
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