Peru: Cuzco - 20th to 23th December (Days 39 to 42)

The 20th we had breakfast at the hotel buffet again and got a minibus to the airport in Juliaca. The minibus went around the city centre collecting people for around 20 minutes and finally we changed to a bigger bus just two streets away from our hotel...!! After a 45 minutes ride we finally arrived at the airport. It was really small but at least there was a place to charge our phones. We had separate seats but in the boarding counter they changed them for us and we could seat together. We arrived at Cuzco after a short flight of less than one hour. We exited the airport terminal getting rid of the many taxi drivers and got a bus to the city centre. From there we walked to our Airbnb accommodation for about 10 minutes. The apartment was very convenient and it had very nice views over he city. 

Our host recommended us a restaurant nearby in San Blas neighbourhood so we went there to have lunch. The restaurant was in the price range of an European restaurant but the food was really tasty and the place was amazing, with a terrace to enjoy views over the city. We tried the trout with corn puree, cheese and quinua croquettes and chica morada for drink. After the great meal, we spent the afternoon visiting different tour agencies around the city centre comparing prices for the different tours we wanted to do during our stay in Cuzco: Vinicunca mountain, the Sacred Valley and transportation to Machu Picchu. We finally booked all these tours with one of them that looked reliable and cheap. During the walk we saw many colonial houses and Inca walls that are still standing (they say that the Incas were much better builders than the Spaniards) and the twelve angles stone.

Next morning we woke up and walked to the San Blas market to have breakfast. We ordered one smoothie and a sandwich each. The smoothies were a big jar and they cost us just 4 soles each. After breakfast we went to the city centre and visited Plaza de Armas, where we saw traditional Peruvian dances, San Pedro Market, where Esteve tried rainbow jelly, and San Francisco square. 

After that we got a tour with the typical touristic double decked bus. We did a tour for around 3 hours, starting in the city centre and doing a first stop in San Cristobal church where there is a great viewpoint of the city. 

Next stop was the impressive Inca fortress ruins of Saqsaywaman. We didn't enter the ruins complex, but we had a nice view of them from the top of the bus. We also saw other Inca ruins like Puca Pucara and Q'enqo.

In the following stop close to Llaullikasa we exited the bus to assist a ritual to the pachamama lead by a indigenous inhabitant that came from the mountains and, as the guide said, he could just speak Quechua. At the end of the ritual he blessed everyone in the group saying the name of all the mountains in the area, as they see them as gods. The last stop in the bus tour was the Cristo Blanco, which was build in 1945 and was a donation from Palestine. It was not really impressive itself, but the views of Cuzco from there were great. 

We finished the tour around 5pm and we didn't have lunch yet, so we had some fast street food, empanadas and a cake. We headed to San Pedro again to walk around the market and buy some food to take with us to Machu Picchu. In our way back to the apartment we saw a music band playing Christmas carols. Once in the apartment Ari worked on her laptop preparing the invoices for One World and Esteve sewed one of the flags in the Osprey bag and prepared the dinner.

Next morning we woke up at 4.15am and waited for the pick up to start our tour to Vinicunca mountain, also called the mountain of the 7 colours. After about 2 hours drive we arrived to a village where we had breakfast with all the group together. We continued the ride to the starting point of the trekking for about one more hour. At the start of the trek the guide gave everyone some coca leaves to chew and avoid altitude sickness, as the top of the mountain was above 5000 meters. We walked for around 2 hours and most of the trail was flat. However, the last part was very steep and Ari felt sick and wanted to throw up.  

When we got to the top the views were incredible despite the crowds of people taking selfies everywhere. While being there we met Gustavo and Getulio, who were doing the same tour, so we walked the way back to the starting point with them. Back with the bus to the same place where we had breakfast, there was a buffet ready for our lunch (there was not many options but it was fine). After lunch we got the bus back to Cuzco where we arrived around 4pm. 

We met Gustavo and Getulio again and walked around San Pedro market again with them. When we wanted to leave the market we didn't find the exit as they were already closing. After that we went to see the mural with the history of Cuzco and Coricancha temple. Finally, we had dinner all together in a grilled chicken restaurant.

Next morning we woke up at 6am to start the tour to the Sacred Valley. This tour usually takes 2 days, as there are many attractions to visit around the Valley, but we did the "VIP" one that visits all of them just in one day. The first stop of the tour was Piuray Lagoon. The bus left us in front of a house and the guide told everyone to get it. There was nothing else to see than the lake in that house and there was an entrance fee, so we didn't enter the house and just enjoyed the view in a clearing next to the house. Next stop was a big alpaca clothes and souvenirs shop where a woman showed to all the group different dyes that they use to colour the clothes (for example chinchilla, an insect that lives in the cactus for red colour) and also a natural shampoo. We spent a lot of time in those two first places, so the rest of the day we didn't have much time to see the other places, which were much more interesting. It was annoying to rush for the rest of the day, but we already knew that it would be like this.

We continued the tour in Chinchero, a village with an Inca temple which was destroyed by the Spaniards and they built a church on top of it called Iglesia de Nuestra Senora de la Natividad. The terraces of the old temple were impressive as well as the inside of the church (where it was not allowed to take pictures).

After the village of Chinchero we stopped in Moray, also called the Inca lab as they performed some experiments on how to grow different plants in very high altitudes where they usually don't grow. It consisted in many concentric circles that formed terraces where the crops grew. In the Moray complex there was a main one and a smaller one, but there was many more in the Inca times. I would have liked more time to visit the place but we had to move to the next one, Maras salt mines. It's impressive how many salt pools are there and the fact that there are still hundreds of people working there, but personally I think the ones we saw in Pammukkale, Turkey were much more beautiful.

We stopped for lunch in a buffet restaurant. There was many different kind of foods to choose and they were surprisingly tasty. We took away some snacks from the buffet to eat later on. After lunch we continued the tour to Ollaytaytambo, where there are the ruins of an Inca village. In the top of the village there is the Temple of the Sun, which has stones heavier than 80 tons and its construction was interrupted by the arrival of the Spaniards. The stones where carried manually by the Incas from the surrounding mountains by hand without the help of animals. It was a shame we just had like 30 minutes to visit the place, as it is huge and there are many things to see there. It was also annoying that we had to wait for more than 15 minutes for the last person in the group, so then we had to hurry up to get to the last destination before it closes at 16.30h, Pisac.

We arrived at Pisac just after 16.30 but luckily we could get in. It is another Inca village which is said to have an eagle shape if you look at it from above. It also has an Inca cemetery along a mountain hillside which was looted throughout last century by the locals who lived nearby to sell the funerary objects as souvenirs to the tourists. Some areas of the complex were already closed when we arrived so we could not enter the main ruins. 

We had to come back to Cuzco with another bus as the one we used during the day broke down. When we finally arrived, we bought some bread to make sandwiches and prepared our day packs for the next day. We arrived at the apartment, had a shower and went to sleep early to rest after a long day.