Well, it was always a big task to follow on from the Galápagos Islands, did I mention that I really liked it?!
But our first week in Peru/Cusco couldn’t have been any better and the area around Cusco, the Sacred Valley and of course Machu Picchu were absolutely amazing!
We stayed one night in Lima close to the airport and then headed straight to Cusco. At the airport we caught up with an old friend from Germany. Gesa is travelling through South America for three months and due to great planning (yeah right), we even arrived at the Cusco airport at the same time. Really nice travelling with her again, last time was quite a few years ago in New Zealand.
We quickly checked into our AirBnB for the next week and started to explore Cusco. The weather was ok, so we walked around quite a bit. And then it hit all of us over the next 24 hours – altitude sickness!
We read a lot about it and when we didn’t feel bad at the airport and walking around through town, we thought we wouldn’t be affected. Don’t get me wrong, we were out of puff in no time – but that could have been due to the lack of exercise. In the evening of our first day it started, some of us had headaches, the kids got wobbly legs and overall we were just really groggy. It took a good day if not two to get over it, and we did all the recommended things like drinking a lot of water, no alcohol etc.
Cusco is on 3500m and we had been at this altitude for a bit in Bogotá, so we really didn’t expect any issues. We took it easy and adjusted to the altitude whilst exploring the beautiful historic centre of Cusco.
Cusco was the centre of the Inca empire and now lives from the vast amount of tourists flowing into town, mainly to visit Machu Picchu. Lots of small, narrow streets, Inca architecture and parks to visit. We took a lot of pictures on the Galápagos but took at least the same amount here in the last week. We walked across the San Pedro market where you literally can buy everything, even freshly prepared guinea pigs (!) and snails etc.
No thank you, no guinea pigs for dinner for us but it is a delicacy in these parts… The other typical meat here is Alpaca which kind of makes sense but we haven’t tried this so far.
For our first full day excursion across the Sacred Valley we booked a taxi for the day for us. Peru overall is a pretty “cheap” country to travel around. Take Machu Picchu out of this though, a visit is extremely expensive…
We bought the required Sacred Valley tourist ticket for 10 days (130 soles) and decided to visit Saqsaywaman (yep, everyone call this one Sexy Woman), Chinchero and Maras. All of them are historical Inca sites, used for various reasons during the Inca Empire. Very impressive to see the first Inca sites and especially Moray near Maras and Chinchero are worth a visit. The weather was getting better by the hour and after a rainy morning the sun came out for most of the next week.
Sexy Woman is very close to Cusco and a nice first site to visit but the highlights were then really Chinchero and Moray in the afternoon. For once, we saw lots of interesting and new birds and the Inca terraces seemed to get larger and nicer with every corner we crossed. A big surprise then at Moray as we saw hummingbirds again! We thought that we saw our last ones in Bogota but no, they are all around Cusco and in the Andes, and we saw plenty more this week. There is no bad day when you see a hummingbird I think, amazing to watch and we all could spend hours doing so. Actually we did!
The terrace formations in Moray are especially beautiful and each step in the terraces apparently is its own little micro climate where the Incas grew various crops all year long. The last stop for the day were the Salineras in Maras, a whole valley full of salt terraces. A salt spring starts at the top of the valley and is then used all the way down to produce salt, an impressive sight, and we had to buy a small pack of this special salt mix.
The next day we started our journey to Machu Picchu. None of us really put too much effort into planning the trip to be fair. We bought the actual entry tickets in early January to ensure we actually get them and we included the Huayna Picchu Mountain into our ticket. We booked the 6am entry tickets as early morning apparently is the nicest and quietest time. Well, it turns out we had to take a 3-4h trip to Machu Picchu from Cusco and wouldn’t make our entry time. Turns out that this is the reason that the early morning start is best as by lunchtime all the day tourists from Cusco arrive. To make our entry time, we had to go to Agua Calientes, a small town 20 minutes off Machu Picchu entry and JUST catering for Machu Picchu tourists, the day before.
We arrived in Agua Calientes in the afternoon, weather was okish and we had an ok hotel for the night as well. We left our main luggage back in Cusco in our AirBnB and only had a couple of small bags for the night and next day. Obviously we had to pack gear for a sunny and rainy day, after all it is the rainy season down here. And just like that it started to rain in the evening and the spirits dropped – imagining a 2-3 hour hike in pouring rain with kids… Even a nice pizza and a couple of Piscos for the girls and an IPA for me didn’t help too much.
After a pretty sleepless night due to a Karaoke Party next door, we got up early, still raining, and had an excellent breakfast to try to lift the mood. And just like that, it stopped to rain! We took the bus and arrived at Machu Picchhu at about 6.30am, ready for our hike up Huayna Picchu which opened at 7am. The mountain looked a bit steep and we knew we were in for a challenge! Briefly wandering through Machu Picchu towards the mountain covered in clouds and with the first light coming up – an amazing start to the day!
To be fair, we were a bit concerned as the minimum age for kids allowed to climb the mountain was apparently 12 years old according to a few blogs and guides we read. So we were not sure if we would be allowed onto the mountain, and if it would be too hard for the kids. Buying the tickets, I might have had to make Jella a year older to get a ticket for her, so the minimum age might have been 8… I the end they checked the passports etc. and no issue for us to get into it.
The hike was about 2h and during the time the weather got better and better, to the point that we had a sunny day at Machu Picchu – very lucky for this time of year 🙂
The kids did amazingly well up and down the mountain and the whole day, proud parent moment for sure. All the way up, and especially at the top we were rewarded with postcard perfect pictures of Machu Picchu lying below. See some pictures below, absolutely stunning!
After we made our way down, a few snacks and toilet stop (no toilets in Machu Picchu, a few weeks ago a few tourists got into jail and kicked out of Peru for not following that rule…), we re-entered Machu Picchu and hired a guide for a couple of hours to show us around the site. More steps, overall a lot of steps all day long. We learned a lot of interesting facts like the Inca compass or the different ways of building (clay, quick and dirty houses for the normal folk and exquisitely carved stones for the priests and Inca) and took soooo many pictures during the day. The guide took the star panorama photo at the top, worth a good chunk of the hefty $60 (US) fee in itself. Well, this wraps up the next bucket list item – what an amazing day. Not cheap (at all!) but worth it!
The next couple of days we took it pretty easy, the kids had a few movie nights with popcorn (well deserved!), I might have snugged in a few nana naps, and we only had a few walks through Cusco. Still very nice and we discovered a few new corners. The last full day we took a bus to Pisac and explored the highly recommended market. The market itself was a bit of a disappointment but Jennifer got a new T-Shirt at least and then we discovered a small but well maintained botanical garden. Lots of humming birds, and I think I mentioned it before – there is no bad day if you see a hummingbird. We could have stayed another hour or two there but we took a taxi up to our final Inca site. And this one was another good one. Well maintained Inca ruins with lots of terraces, huts – and even more humming birds. We hiked about 2h back to Pisac from the top and had spectacular views all along. Did I mention that the weather was sunny again? Couldn’t get any better really.
Well, turns out it can. On the descent we saw a new and very special humming bird, the Giant Hummingbird – the largest of them all. Very cool and as we saw so many cool things on the way down, we just made it back to Pisac as the sun went down. It was a long day and we took a taxi back to our accommodation in Cusco, had a quick dinner and then Jennifer and I headed out to have a quiet beer at the end of the day. That didn’t really work out. It turns out that this weekend was the election for congress in Peru and because of that there is no alcohol on sale, anywhere. Go figure! An ice cream and a milkshake later, we headed back and this wraps up our time in Cusco.
Today, and despite just another sunny day, we visited a couple of rather disappointing and one average museums and are now sitting in a restaurant to wait for our night bus to Arequipa. It just started to rain a bit, so here is cheers to our good luck.
This time we booked Carma class in the bus, meaning a fully reclining luxury chair (similar to business class) for our 10h trip. We should be in Arequipa at 6.30am tomorrow morning to be picked up for our next stop – Colca Canyon.
