Cusco means navel in Quechua, the native Incan language, because it was considered to be the "navel" point at which the four empires met. It's also the starting point for any trip to Macchu Piccu. From Cusco, most people take the train to the base of MP.
It is definitely the sleeper city of Peru and rivals our ultimate favorites from trips past. We fell in love with the area and enjoyed every second of our stay. Sean even looked into the university there, so that it could possibly be considered as a future Olmsted location.
Cusco's elevation is a steep, 11,000 feet. To give you a comparison, it's twice the elevation of Denver, the mile high city. With high altitude comes altitude sickness, and poor Mr. Teague had it bad for about 24 hours, but other than vomiting, wearing a silly Peruvian hat and playing the pan flute, he exhibited no other strange symptoms.
From here, we rode 2 hours with a crazy (almost crazy enough to capitalize) taxi driver to Ollantaytambo in the Sacred Valley. He said he drove the route 5-6 times a day, and he did seem to know every speed bump and curve in the road. Luckily there was one working seatbelt in the car.
More Cusco:
Miles and miles of beautiful tile rooftops
Peruvian woman feeding the birds.
Main square, Plaza de Armas
The Santo Domingo Cathedral
1 comment:
gorgeous..as Tina Fay says..."I want to go there!" Why are taxis drivers so insane? In Costa Rica, one driver terrified me and when I asked him to slow down, he did for about 3min.!
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