Its only been 7 days since I last blogged, but I am still struggling to process all of the incredible things that have happened in just a week. My trek was absolutely amazing and I can’t wait to share all of the details, but I’m going to work backwards, starting with June 12, my last day in Cusco before my trek:
I was up relatively early to book a day tour through my hostel, a half day visit to five Inca ruins sites in the Cusco area. My tour didn’t leave until 1:30 PM, so I had the morning to myself to check out the city. I ate the very average free breakfast at my hostel — breakfast pretty much anywhere in South America consists of bread (in Argentina you get lucky and score Media Lunas, sweet croissants) with butter and jam, average coffee and cocoa tea. Over breakfast, I met a German girl who was stuck in a huge cast because she fell on one of the floating islands in Bolivia on Lake Titicaca and fractured her ankle. Luckily, she had friends living in Ecuador, so she was heading up north to meet them and take it easy, since she was stuck in her cast for 6 weeks, the duration of her time traveling. Her injury certainly put my tiny stresses of the week prior in perspective — having a vacation ruined by a broken bone is so much worse than anything I’ve had to face on my trip thus far, a good reality check for me!
Two of the girls staying in the same room at my hostel were American — one from Portland and one from San Francisco — so we immediately bonded. They had just come back from their Inka Trek, and wanted to spend the morning at the Artisinal Market. The market was also on my to do list, so I took them up on their offer to join them shopping for the morning.
The market was a pretty crazy sight — a giant warehouse filled with row upon row of tiny cubicles, crammed with hundreds of alpaca- and lama-knit sweaters, scarves, keychains, figurines and necklaces galore. Luckily we were there on a calm Tuesday morning, so we didn’t have too much company. Annie was a crazy bargainer, so she helped me snag an awesome lime green, knit alpaca zip-up for 30 soles ($11). It’s pretty out there, but now that I’ve worn it for the last few days, I’m relatively obsessed with it. One thing’s for sure; it will be very easy to spot me in NYC when I wear it all winter!
After grabbing a quick light lunch of bananas, granola and peach drinkable yogurt (strangely delicious) at a local supermarket, I made my way back to the hostel for my tour, which ended up starting much closer to 2 PM than 1:30. I panicked slightly when the guide began to make his long, Spanish introduction that I didn’t clarify earlier that morning that I needed a bilingual or English tour. Luckily, there were a handful of other people who needed the tour in English, so the 5 of us bonded while the rest of the group talked and became restless and rude when our tour guide switched to explain things in English for us.
One of the biggest downsides to traveling in a country where you don’t speak the language is the lack of accessible information at museums and ruins — very few signs are in English, especially at less popular tourist destinations, which can be relatively infuriating. Luckily, we had a good guide, and I was able to grasp most of what he was explaining to us.
Alon, a 30-year old Israeli TV journalist, and I started talking immediately and spent most of the tour chatting — we also made friends with three other girls, one from Sweden, one from Switzerland, and a student from Davidson College in the states.
The two words that immediately come to mind when I think of all the gorgeous Inca ruins I’ve seen over the past week are humbling and mind-boggling. Looking at these gigantic stones, some of them 15 feet high and weighing in at close to a ton, built up perfectly on these beautiful grass plateaus, completely isolated from everything, really blows your mind. How did a people, who lived in such rocky, steep terrain, and who didn’t use the wheel, manage to transport and beautifully carve such massive stones, close to 700 years ago?
It was also heartbreaking to hear about how much of the Inca civilization is a mystery to our generation because the Spanish destroyed so much of the Inca’s structures, precious metals, and culture when they came to conquer South America.
Though it’s the most bizarre of all the ruins sites, I found the Qorikanca Temple in downtown Cusco the most aesthetically fascinating. The Spanish built their church directly over the Inca temple that they partially destroyed, so the site is a strange mixture of Spanish architecture and beautiful Inca-carved stones. We also made our way up into the hills of Cusco to see Saqsaywaman, a gigantic Inca situated on a beautiful grassy hill that overlooks the entire city of Cusco. We had a clear view of the Plaza de Armas, just a few blocks from my hostel, and our guide explained that Cusco was originally meant to be shaped like a Puma, one of the three sacred animals to the Incas, and that Saqsaywaman forms the head of the Puma.
Because our tour started so much later than scheduled, we ended up seeing the last two sites after sundown, so we didn’t get the best views. I was relatively annoyed, but have to admit it was really neat to see all of Cusco lit up below us once it started to get dark.
Us English-speakers all opted for a nice dinner at Inka Grill on the Plaza after the tour — a bit pricey, but my goat cheese and spinach stuffed chicken breast was delicious, and so was the chocolate tart we all split afterwards.
When I got back to my hostel I was exhausted from being in the sun and high altitude all day, but completely anxious and wired for my trek the next day. I accidentally left disc 1 of Friday Night Lights in my laptop when I moved, so after I packed and separated my stuff, I watched an episode and then promptly passed out!