Cuzco I

A night at an airport is rarely much fun. When planning our trip, because of our late arrival in Lima from Sao Paolo (11pm), we had considered going to a hotel in the middle of the night and returning back early in the morning. There were very few hotels nearby except for an overpriced Ramada right at the airport. It seemed like an expensive hassle. We ended up choosing an uncomfortable and very inexpensive alternative - spending a night at the airport and flying out on the first flight to Cuzco in the morning at 5:30am.

The airport was quite busy even in the middle of the night. It seems a lot of flights arrive and depart Lima around or just after midnight. We were entertained by a systematic cleaning crew of a food court, used some bandwidth from Starbucks to catch up on the news and make more plans, and even enjoyed a Pisco Sour to kick off our Peruvian adventure in style. I managed to get some sleep later in the night on the chairs in the relatively cold terminal.

I watched the landscape from above on our flight to Cuzco. Lima was covered by a coastal fog but there were lights higher up in the mountains. Later, the ground below went completely dark as the mountains are quite sparsely populated. Still later, we were treated to one of the most beautiful sunrises I can remember on a flight as we flew over snowcapped Andes sticking out above the clouds. Cuzco greeted us with more low clouds. Already from the air, it was hard not to notice a feature of a Peruvian architecture I had seen on my first trip to Peru 11 years before - unfinished buildings with rebar sticking out from the top floors.

Cuzco, the capital of the Inca empire, is a tourist city these days. While the colonial Spanish architecture had replaced that of the Incas in the city, there are still plenty of reminders of the Inca era in and just outside the city. The city is also a base for exploring the surrounding areas, including the Machu Picchu.

We overpaid for our taxi from the airport to our hotel that we had booked a few days earlier from Brazil. Even though we showed up at 7:30 in the morning, the hotel staff at Rumi Punku let us check-in. We drank some coca tea as we waited for our room to be ready. The room was huge... And cold. The heat must have been off overnight and, as we found over the course of the following days, the heat was only on at night. The nights are cold in Cuzco in winter - often around or just a few degrees above freezing. We shivered under the blankets for a couple of hours trying to catch up on sleep. I woke up feeling a bit out of it, as Irina would put it, probably because of the altitude but I got better when we got moving again.

We were given a map and basic walk-around instructions in the reception of our hotel -- Cuzco is completely safe, one should not pay much for taxis, and the main square, Plaza del Armas, is quite close... And that was where we went first. It was a Sunday and there was a parade through the square. Marching bands and units of military parading along kept our attention for a while. Later, we continued our walking tour through some of the adjacent squares. I felt much better after having a lunch - a roasted chicken with sweet potatoes, a meal that I bought from a street vendor. We observed the street life for a few hours before taking some more rest in the hotel which gave me time to ponder a bit what I had seen. Like everywhere, tourism is a blessing for the local economy. The city has experienced tremenous growth in the last few decades and a relative prosperity. There is usually a price to pay for this popularity. Local art souvenir stores line many of the streets and spill out into courtyards. Quechua locals dress up in local costumes to pose for pictures for money. Yet, it all still seemed strangely authentic. Hopefully, it will not get past this stage to where a local art store gets pushed out by a big name brand from overseas....

It was already dark when we headed out for a dinner. We picked one of the restaurants on Plaza del Armas. It was a great experience. We sat next to a window overlooking the cathedrals surrounding the square. Their quinoa soup was absolutely delicious. We feasted on ceviche with a variety of potatoes and corn, that the region is known for, as sides. In fact, potatoes originally come from this Andean region. Ceviche, another Peruvian specialty, features raw fish or seafood, and had recently become one of our favorites. The somewhat exotic tastes were a welcome change from a slightly unispiring cuisine of our destinations in Brazil. While we were having dinner, a three-man band walked in and played Peruvian music making for a great atmosphere. We liked their performance so much that Irina ended up buying their CD.

Walking back to the hotel, I could feel it had been a long day which had really started some 36 hours earlier in Rio de Janeiro. I could definitely feel the altitude too. After all, Cuzco is some 11,300 ft (3,400 m) above the sea level. I could feel it still more later in the evening when we tried to keep warm...

Trying on a chullo	Dawn from a plane	Jet engine sunrise	Window above the clouds	Curves	Airplane window scenery
	Andes	More Andes	Sea of clouds	Mountain above the sea of clouds	Diving into the clouds
Our plane in Cuzco	Altitude	Dreamcatcher	Models	A girl and her goat	Death penalty
Colorful balaclavas	Marching band	Officials	Army	Girls	Cathedral
Buses	Tupac Amaru buses	Bata shoe store	Mass	Lamborgini ice cream cart	Ice cream competitor
Young generation pastimes	Parfait party	Newspaper sellers	Street musician	Street musician
Street dogs on Plaza San Francisco	Street	El Che	Native old woman	Native old woman	Atahualpa
Jackhammer danger	Calle Choquechaca	An old lady on Calle Atocsaycuchi	An old lady on Calle Atocsaycuchi	Quinoa soup	Quinoa soup
Ceviche and Plaza del Armas	Native band	Guitar player	Guitar player	Drum player	Zampona player
Arcade on Plaza del Armas