Peru! Cuzco

Cuzco is a very different city than Lima. It was the seat of the Incan empire, as opposed to Lima which was built by Spaniards. There were 600 year old Incan walls all over the city, including inside our hotel!

Behold, the Turi Wasi Hotel's Incan wall! It is in the breakfast buffet area with junk casually leaning against it. Some of the hotel rooms had beds up against the ancient wall. It is incredible that the city has enough Incan walls to be able to take them for granted. 

More Incan wall, this time in the very affordable Chifa restaurant. Theirs was behind glass which seemed more appropriate.

This stone in a random alleyway is famous for having 12 very precise angles cut into it. 

It's also an optical illusion making Stephen look like a wee little guy. 

Our hotel room was right off of this main square. It was a great location, other than the fact that there was a discoteca close enough that we couldn't fully block out the bass blaring from around midnight to 4 am every day. I got used to it after a few days. 

I love the buildings on the hills surrounding Cuzco. It was particularly pretty at night. 

Here's the Cuzco cathedral on the main square by the hotel. There's no skeletons here as far as I know, but it wasn't open to tourists so I can't say for sure.

We had a free morning before the tour started as the rest of our group flew in. I couldn't say no to the baby sheep that were somewhat aggressively shoved into my arms. They are so cute with their crochet hats!

We walked over to the ChocoMuseo hoping to be able to squeeze in a chocolate making class. They didn't have any available, but we got to see the chocolate factory at work, taste some free samples, and buy a bunch to take home.

We walked with Claudia and the part of our group that had arrived to a big marketplace. There were souvenirs for tourists, but also everything imaginable on sale for the locals. I'm pretty sure this stand was selling olives and caviar, which seems all sorts of fancy. 

We followed Megan Blood's recommendation to get lunch at Jack's. We had an alpaca sandwich and quinoa soup, which was delicious!

Then we got to kick off the official tour! We had 26 people split into two 13 passenger vans. Each van had it's own driver and tour guide who spoke English and was very knowledgeable. Our first stop was Saqsaywaman, which is pronounced very similarly to "Sexy Woman." It is an Incan site on the outskirts of Lima. All the small blocks that could be carried away were taken by the Spanish to build the cathedral, but it was built so well that a lot of it is still standing in amazing condition despite the efforts of the Spanish to destroy what they could. 

The way that the Incas were able to get the stones to fit together so precisely remains a mystery to this day. They had abundant amounts of soft metals like gold and silver available, but didn't have access to hard metals that would be capable of stone carving. They had some very dense meteorite balls that could be used to scrap rock smooth, but that still doesn't explain how they got the angles of the stones to line up so perfectly. 

The sexy women of Saqsaywaman

You can see the zig zag pattern of the walls in the back. We saw a lot of terraces throughout the week, but this seemed unique.

So many of the stones are huge! And they moved them without ever inventing the wheel!

Nearby was a naturally slick rock slide. Our guides demonstrated the proper braking mechanism, which involves spitting on your hands. It worked pretty well. 

This tunnel was pitch black- they encouraged us to walk through it without any lights. Apparently there were tunnels coming this fortress down to the temple in Cuzco that were collapsed, but recently archeologist are starting to excavate them. My impression was that there is a lot of archeological work to be done in Peru that has been blocked by the government. 

After wandering the ruins to our hearts content, we drove a little ways to an alpaca and llama farm. We were able to feed and pet them (while being careful to not get spat on). There were many varieties and even some vicunas, which are undomesticated relatives. Their wool is even softer than alpaca, but they produce much less of it and it's way harder to get because of how wild the vicunas are. They are a protected animal now. 

How handsome is this guy?

There was a store attached. Honestly I would be happy touching all the baby alpaca products all day long- it's so soft!