Six hours after arriving in Lima on June 11th, we had a flight scheduled for Cuzco, where our Peruvian adventure would begin. Unfortunately, we experienced a bit of a disaster at the airport, as we – despite spending the night in the airport – missed our flight that had been pushed back 1,5 hours without any notification. So that resulted in us having to buy new tickets with another airline for a later flight, but thankfully we got the money back for the tickets a few months later… At 7.45 AM, we were finally on our way and an hour and a half later, we arrived in beautiful Cuzco, located high up in the Andes Mountains in an altitude that I hadn’t experienced since Tajikistan in early 2016. It made us dizzy walking our normal pace around Cuzco, as the city is 3399 meters above sea level, so we had to take it slow in order to not faint. I can’t remember ever being hit by altitude sickness this bad, but it was just something that we had to get used to.
The first thing that I noticed about Cuzco and Peru in general, is how beautiful the people are. They are seriously GORGEOUS (major cheek bone envy!). I’m only talking exterior looks now, although Peruvians have their kind souls to go with their beautiful faces.
We didn’t do much on our first day – not because we didn’t want to, but because bad luck struck us again. After having a great few hours eating the most delicious meal at a local restaurant (and the best milkshake ever!), and buying a ton of cheap Alpaca clothing, we headed back to our hostel to drop all of our bags off, and then planned on going on a free walking tour in the city with our new friend Lee who we met on the plane.
But unfortunately, destiny didn’t want it that way. Brandon was bit by a dog, completely unforeseen; the dog just came up from behind and bit him in the leg! Having gone through my own rabies scare earlier this year, I knew how terrible and frightened he must’ve felt, knowing that rabies is in fact widespread in Peru.
So of course we hadr to cancel the free walking tour, and then headed to all the hospitals that we could find. Unfortunately, after going to four hospitals, we still hadn’t found one that had the vaccination available, but the 5th one ended up being a life-saver. We spent a good hour at the hospital, getting all the necessary tests done, getting the wound cleaned, getting his vaccine and antibiotics and waiting for the insurance documents. Thankfully, we were able to get the vaccine that day, but we were almost about to give up after our fourth try! I’m glad we didn’t, because now I know for sure that my brother is safe.
After two mishaps, we were really hoping for everything else in Cuzco to go smoothly. Thankfully, Cuzco is a lovely and lively city that I really felt safe and comfortable in – I didn’t want to leave the place at the end of our stay!
We spent most of our time there going on tours, but on our third day in Cuzco, we decided to dedicate the entire day on exploring the city. We first caught a cab for just 10 soles to Sacsayhuamán, the ruins of a citadel on the northern outskirts of the city. The first sections of the citadel were built by the Killke Culture in the early 12th century, but it was expanded by the Incas in the 13th century, when Cuzco was the capital of the empire.
We thought the entrance price of 40 soles was waaay too expensive, so instead, we decided to just see it from the outside. Afterall, we were going to be walking the inka trail to Machu Picchu the rest of the week, so we would get our share of ruins in Peru then.
A few hundred meters from the ruins stands the eight-meter high Cristo Blanco statue, perched high above Cuzco. We walked up there and stayed there for quite a while to enjoy the mesmerizing views of the colourful city with the mountainous backdrop. Cuzco is one of the most beautiful cities I’ve ever seen.
That day in Cuzco turned out to be quite special with a lot of activities, shows and fun traditional dances going on! We walked down from Cristo Blanco to the main square, Plaza de Armas, where we saw children dressed in traditional clothing, who were dancing around with thousands of people watching them. We felt so lucky to experience such an amazing cultural event.
The next day, it was time to leave for our four-day hike to Machu Picchu (stay tuned for the post on that!), but when we got back to Cuzco we still had a few days left there. We spent most of that time relaxing after the loooong and tiring hike, but we did find time to do the walking tour that we had missed earlier. Our guide Jose was great and knew many hidden gems of the city. He showed us a place full of alpacas and a llama, a beautiful viewpoint and talked about the architecture of the buildings in the city. It was a great way to end our trip to Cuzco.
Cuzco was a great first meeting with Peru, and just from this one city, Peru was already climbing higher and higher up my list of favourite countries for every day that went by. I absolutely loved our time in Cuzco and felt sad to leave it behind. Maybe someday I’ll be back to this cultural gem in the middle of the Andes.
Leave a Comment