Cuzco and Macchu Picchu

I arrived in Cuzco just over an hours flight from Lima. The city is located about 3500m above sea level and sometimes people get pretty bad reactions of altitude sickness.

When i landed it was cold and i could feel the air was really thin, it kind of made you feel like you were out of breath due to exercise even though you were just sat around, it was odd. I was met at the airport by Julio who was going to be my guide for the next few days, he was studying Tourism at uni, its the biggest business in that area by miles and that combined with his english is very good for someone from Cuzco. He was very kind and helpful and lots of fun.

I got to my hostel, put on some more clothes and had some Coca tea (not a drug but the same plant as cocaine comes from i think). Its supposed to help with the altitude sickness but i was jsut glad to have a warm drink to warm me up (think i'm going soft).

After lunch i was picked up again and taken around the city and some archaelogical sites close by

Coricancha (Temple of the Sun)

Sacsayhuaman - pronounced (by me anyway) Sexywoman.

The Cathedral

All the sites were Incan Historical sites used for various differnt reasons, from worhip to decoration, to living in. For the Incans everything was a God, the land, the rocks, the river, the mountains but at the top of the God's was the Sun God. This all changed when the Spanish arrived and forced people to become Catholic, so now there are in Cuzco a reeal mix of Incan things and Catholic things. At the Temple of the sun most things had been destroyed by the Spanish who then used the rocks to build there church as a sign of destroying what they saw as pagan beliefs. This has lead to some interesting mixtures in things including in the cathedral a Peruvian last supper painting, with references on it of the sun and the moon and mountains as well as Jesus and his disciples all eating Peruvian food including their most famous dish, roasted guinea pig.

The other sites up in the mountains were just incredible as some of the rocks could weigh hundreds of tons and had been transported by pure human muscle and brain power, the pics really cant show how amazing this looked.

Finally we visited a shop where they showed us the famous alpacca furs and clothes and we got to enjoy yet more Coca tea.