Our night bus from Nazca was 15.5 hours long, mostly on the windiest roads we’ve experienced. Besides the nausea, though, it went smoothly. Once we woke up, and by we I mean me since Nick didn’t really sleep, we opened the curtains and got to watch outside. There was a cute dog with his legs crossed with his head resting on top, like a person daydreaming. There was also an avocado stand in a village, which I suppose was too tempting to resist for our bus driver as he pulled over and purchased some before we continued. We passed mountains, villages, and fields. Finally we arrived in the afternoon to Cusco, where Nick and I carried our bags 40 minutes uphill to our inn. Wow, we could really feel the high elevation. Many breaks were had during that walk.

The hotel was super cute, with an open dining and lounge area with massive sky lights. There we enjoyed the welcome coca tea that is supposedly good for altitude sickness. Our room was cozy and is where we spent most of our arrival day. A quick nap was necessary and amazing. We ventured out of our hotel again for dinner at Locale. There Nick and I split the short rib empanadas and the trout ceviche. With that dinner the trend of food being spectacular in Peru continued. We were happy to have an early bed time after the night bus to get ready for our first real day of exploring.

Our first day started slow with some phone calls to home before heading out for an early lunch at the nearby market, Mercado San Blas. There we shared a lomo saltado; Nick was thrilled I have a new favorite dish. On our way out we passed some irresistible brownies so we got those, too. After filling up we made our way to the first archeological site of the day, Saqsaywaman, a 20 minute walk away. With the high altitude that took us a bit longer than google estimated. The walk took us through a very touristy area with many shops and beautiful alleys. I love the little cows they have on some roofs, it reminds me of the little rooftop dragons in China.

Once there, we asked to buy the Cusco Tourism pass, a pass that lasts for 10 days and gives entrance to about 16 different sites/museums. They only took cash so Nick left me to wait for him while he ran to go get cash. That was strategic on his part as I was struggling big time on the uphill with the altitude. At least there was a fabulous view of the city from up there. While Nick was away he missed a hilarious interaction I had with a school group. It would’ve been great to have him there to capture it for the blog. A school group of about 15 kids, around age 15, with one teacher were getting their passes when one noticed me. He ran over and asked in Spanish for a photo, to which I said yes. We were used to that from traveling in Asia. Once the others saw this there formed a line for each student to get their photo with me. They wanted solo ones, selfie ones, and ones with different friends. It was super funny. Nick arrived shortly after their teacher told them it was time to start exploring and leave me alone.

The site itself was impressive with large stones fitting together seamlessly to form walls. The signs said it was a ceremonial site, but Nick and I agreed that it felt like they just say that when they are not sure what it really was. It feels like too many places are exclusively ceremonial, but maybe they’re right. We walked around the different areas taking in views of the city, the ruins, and the open spaces. One of the large rocks nearby a ruin was smooth from kids using it as a slide over and over again. It was super cute to watch them run up and slide down.

A short walk away through a small wooded area and a park was our second archeological site, Q’Enqo. That site was much smaller so I was happy we did the larger one first. It had some large rocks with a passage hidden between that we walked. It was not obvious what it was used for, but, if we had to guess, probably ceremonial. It was less classic looking as far as Inca ruins go compared to the first site we visited. We also passed some beautiful wall art after leaving the site. Cusco has wall art everywhere.

For dinner we went to Saphi Restaurant. We shared a main of beef cheeks and quinoa, as well as a pumpkin soup. It was so delicious. On our way home a tall lemon meringue pie caught my eye from the back of a bakery. The bakery was Panaderia Pasteleria Panymas. There we got a alfajor (a cookie sandwhich), a conos (a cone like flakey pastry stuffed with mild flavored caramel), and the lemon meringue pie that caught my attention. I thought the two non pie items were a bit mild in flavor so I let Nick eat most of those. The pie however was unreal, that is the ratio all pies should have to meringue.

The next day was another archeological site visit day, but this time to sites that were almost 2 hours away by walking. It might have been faster if we were adjusted to the elevation already, but since we weren’t it was slow. It was steep stairs and a steep hill to start, which we did at a crawling pace. One thing that helped us not to worry about how our hiking would go was seeing that everyone else was also moving as slowly as we were. The walk was beautiful, though, passing horses, and getting a view down the road of yellow and green mountains. We were offered horses to ride there for a fee multiple times, maybe we were huffing and puffing more than we thought.

Finally we made it to our first stop, Tambomachay. The site had to do with water ceremonies and there was still water pouring out from the carved facets on the stone wall face. It was small and easy to see the whole thing quickly. I love the Inca ruins, the stones look like corn. There were many Spanish speaking tourists there and we were the only blondes so we stuck out like sore thumbs.

Next was Puka Pukara, which was a short walk down the street. That site was where travelers would be housed. It was neat to see all the separate building foundations. We also enjoyed having the mountains in the background, it made it all beautiful. It was a short loop to walk around the entire site. Many children were there with their parents or on what appeared to be school trips. Many stared, said hello, and waved. Our personal favorite was a little girl who looked at us, smiled really big, and then exclaimed, “Barbie and Ken!” I burst out laughing I was not expecting that. Most of the time it’s “Hola” or “Buenas”.

After the two quick site visits we walked back the way we came to get some lunch in the village. The village had many alpacas (even some babies) and some llamas too. The alpacas are much cuter in my opinion. First we walked to our planned empanada place, Restaurant Cafe Llaulliccasa, but they only had cheese or ham and cheese empanadas. I prefer chicken or beef ones, so Nick got one but not me. The cafe had a few alpacas in the yard, which were adorable. After Nick’s snack we walked back into the village to find a place for lunch. I’ll admit this process was maybe more dramatic then it needed to be.

We ended up getting pork belly chicharron from La Casona del Chiriuchu for lunch, which was pretty yummy. That was what was on our sandwiches for two days back in Lima, but this time we tried it on it’s own. It came with potato soup, too, which Nick enjoyed. It was filled with cilantro so it was a bit too soapy for my liking. The chicharron came with a boiled potato, a stuffed pepper Nick loved, corn on the cob, and a salad. We had gone in initially to get guinea pig, but she said they were out. We watched as a father and son got the last one, but they were a little upset because they ordered something else. Nick was tempted to offer to take it off their hands, but it seemed a little tense so we stayed in our lane.

Once we made it back to town we relaxed and caught up on some logistics before heading out again for dinner. We went a short walk down the street to Sangucheria Artesanal for some sandwiches. We both got the burger and shared 1/2 liter of strawberry juice and 1/2 liter of mango juice. It was such a good deal! Since we were under budget for the day I managed to convince Nick to go to a bar down the street for dessert. At Aton Cusco Nick got the banana vanilla cake, which was cute. It was like 3 mini multitiered cakes put together with a stick. I got a pisco sour, finally! It was so yummy. As it turns out a pisco sour at high altitude feels similar to drinking 5.

Our first stop was Mirador Taray, a viewpoint. It was a nice viewpoint of the sacred valley with mountains around. After that it was a short drive to a silver shop. There the Spanish speakers (our entire bus except for us) got a long demonstration. As usual, our English version was about 5 minutes long so we wandered the store for a long time looking at all the handmade jewelry using silver and local gemstones and shells. Everything was pretty, but expensive. Outside the shop, women dressed in traditional clothing waited to see if anyone wanted a photo with them and their baby alpacas and goats. The alpacas had cute yarn necklaces and the goats had little yarn hats.

Finally it was time for our first archeological site of Pisaq. That one was our favorite of all the sites we had visited so far. It had two sections of large terraces originally used by the Incas for agriculture. They served many purposes, though, including erosion prevention. Our guide did our explanation in English quickly so we could go off and wander on our own while the rest of our Spanish speaking companions could be guided around at a slower pace. We hoped Jorge wasn’t having too much trouble on the English tour.

The site was had a village where people lived, burial sites, and a beautiful viewpoint. The burial sites were holes in the neighboring mountainside, they did not need to be closed since it was so cold there. We had gone to the viewpoint by mistake thinking that path was taking us to the ruins of the village. We hade to hurry our way down to make it back in time after doing both. Some school kids were excited to see us, and one woman made her daughter take a photo with me. I didn’t notice at the time, but the little girl did not look that thrilled about it. Alpacas and llamas emerged at some point and one even laid down in the shelter for people, which I thought was hilarious since it could’ve just laid down anywhere since it couldn’t use the benches.

Lunch was also an interesting experience. Instead of all of us (I believe we were about 12 people) eating at the same place, we were dropped off and separated to 3 different restaurants. It was an all you can eat buffet with meats and fresh ceviche. There was live music, a pipe flutist covering popular songs. That became a trend in Peru, they must really love flutes. Two alpacas sat in front of the restaurant which I captured quickly before getting back to the van. All the tour vans look the same and a different driver waved us over to their van. Luckily we saw that it wasn’t ours and went to ours instead. We drove to pick up each set of people from the different restaurants and almost left some people behind. We were happy to not have been forgotten.

After lunch it was time to drive to Ollantaytambo for the second archeological site. That place was the busiest tourist destination we had been to. That was likely due to the fact that the town is also the place where people catch the train to get to Machu Picchu if they are not hiking there. The site was beautiful with steep terraces. There was an unfinished Sun Temple that used impressively large stones. It was unfinished due to the colonizers coming. Across the town on the side of a mountain we could see the astronomical mountain. There they had grain storage and used the different sections of the mountain to know what time of year it was based on the sun. There was also a water temple, which was cool to see. They had water that ran inside the homes. On our way out we saw a group of children getting their photo taken by the parents, all dressed in traditional clothing. They were adorable.

Our third site visit was a site that was religious. Chinchero was interesting because we could see clearly where colonizers had built on top of Inca foundations. There were also some agricultural terraces there, too. Our last stop was a textiles shop. We all got a demonstration of alpaca wool processing including the washing, spinning, and dyeing using natural colors. They passed around some samples which were not soft at all, but there were soft items in the shop. I would’ve assume they’d want to use the soft stuff as a demonstration to get people more likely to buy stuff.

We made it back to Cusco at 7:30pm, making it nearly a 12 hour tour. The tour we had booked was a bit shorter as it didn’t have the silver or textiles stops. Poor Jorge probably was on an English speaking tour with less stops. For dinner we ate at our favorite sandwich shop again, this time having chicharron sandwiches and blueberry and mango juices. It was a great day.