Peruvian Adventure Series 2 of 9 – Day Three 5/13/2008 Cusco, Peru {Travel}

Welcome to Travel Tuesday! Today I’m going to walk you through Day Three – Arriving in Cusco, Peru. This is a nine part series of my excursion to Peru. If you haven’t read the Travel Tuesday entries please take the time to check it out.

Just a quick recap:

Sunday, May 11, 2008 Day 1 - Flying from LAX to Lima, Peru

Monday, May 12 2008 Day 2 – Sightseeing in Lima

Tuesday, May 13, 2008 Day 3 - Flying from Lima to Cusco

Wednesday, May 14, 2008 Day 4 – Traveling by train to Machu Picchu

Thursday, May 15, 2008 Day 5 – Tour Pisac Market & Ollantaytambo

Friday, May 16, 2008 Day 6 – Tour City & Ruins Tour

Saturday, May 17, 2008 Day 7 -Flying to Puerto Maldonado, boat ride to Posada Amazonas

Sunday, May 18, 2008 Day 8 – Tour Tres Chimbadas Lake

Monday, May 19, 2008 Day 9 – Walking tour to the Clay Lick
Tuesday, May 20, 2008 Day 10 – Airfare One Way Puerto Maldonado to Lima then Lima to LAX

In this blog entry I’m going to walk you through my day 3 in Cusco, Peru.

Let’s begin. Tuesday, May 13, 2008 Day 3 - Flying from Lima to Cusco

My day started bright and early with a transport to the airport to take me from Lima to Cusco. Not a long flight as I believe is less than an hour.

The first thing that hits the arrived visitor to Cusco are the Inca walls; enormous granite blocks carved to fit together perfectly without the aid of mortar beds. Many of the walls were simply built upon during the construction of a new Spanish city. It’s a tribute to the Incas that their anti seismic design has survived the test of time while the Spanish colonial architecture has been rebuilt several times following a wave of earthquakes that have hit the city. Cusco was referred to as the ‘Navel of the World’.

When I travel alone I don’t always have to stay in a 5 Diamond resort. In fact I’m not sure of the rating at the Casa Andina but it was always clean and the staff is always happy to help you with what ever you request. When I’m traveling I only use the hotel for sleeping and showering. This trip my goal was to stay in a clean room/hotel and get me out on tours to maximize each day to the fullest.

Cusco is located at an altitude of 3,360m above sea level. Lot’s of people get sick from the high altitude. Every hotel and restaurant have the coca tea which helps with altitude sickness.

I’ve heard from locals and the hotel staff that they urge you to rest a day before starting any activities to get your body used to the altitude. So I got off the plane, had a private transport to my hotel. I started drinking the coca tea as soon as I arrived at the lobby of the hotel. The coca tea helps with the altitude. I was feeling fine and had no signs besides a little light headed. I rested about an hour and threw on my gear and headed out to the streets.

Below is the center of Cusco also known as the Plaza.

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This fountain is totally awesome. I happened to catch a dove flying which totally added to the overall photograph.

I got adventurous again and started to venture past my comfort zone. Which I’m glad I had as I found some very interesting things to photograph.

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I carefully looked down each walk way and looked around each corner. To my surprise, I caught this lady walking her llama down the street.  I love how the pillars and overhangs framed this photograph.

The dog below gave me a fright! I’m not really spooked by stray dogs but as I’ve mentioned I was out of my comfort zone. He had followed me for a few blocks. He eventually went to the other side of the street and sat. This is when I took his beautiful portrait. As I look back, I ask myself why was I so scared of this adorable dog and I laugh. I have an 8×10 printed next to my desk printed on matte paper to remind me to step out of my comfort zone every now and again.

Since Cusco is built in a valley you have many streets and stairs that rise and drop at such an angles. I wish I would of counted how many stairs this walk way had below.

At the bottom of the stairs the lady below was selling some fresh fruit and soda. A soda sounded so good as I was walking around making myself exhausted. The high altitude also made my lips dry. I’m not sure if you could tell, but the soda is in direct sunlight which means that bottle of soda must of been warm! No quenching my thirst here.

Shortly after passing the lady I heard something bouncing coming my way. It was a soccer ball bouncing down the long walk way. I hear a boy say stop it, stop it. At that moment I caught the ball and laughed at the boy. I told him I would be happy to return the ball if he could do some tricks with it. He was a little shy at first but after a few seconds he started to toss the ball up in the air and start kicking it around. The photograph below shows how he could catch the ball on top of his head. I just love the expression on this face. I gave him a couple of Sols for this soccer talent.

Anther great find was seeing this street lined with ladies selling their goods. It looked funny to me as I saw nothing but a zig zag outline of ladies on both sides of the street.

In the photograph above in the top right hand corner sat the youngest woman knitting with a baby on wrapped in a blanket on her back. The baby was so adorable I had to ask if I could take her picture. The lady didn’t speak any English. She said no sir take of baby, take of baby. I asked if I could take one of her and she said one. Honestly this was the one and only photograph I took of her. I’m so glad she allowed me to!

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After taking this photograph I gave her 5 sols. She asked that I buy something instead of just giving her money. She was an honest woman making her hand crafted goods. I wasn’t going to walk away without giving her something for allowing me to take this great photograph. Out of the entire trip this is one photograph that sticks out in my mind. This photograph is printed 11×14 on Luster paper. It’s framed with a creamy double matte in a silver frame at the office. I receive many compliments.

On my way back to the hotel, I stopped inside a little store and bought some postcards to mail to family and friends when I took the photograph below of a stack of beautiful blankets and some hand knitted llama scarfs.

This concludes Day 3 in the city of Cusco, Peru. Anther early evening as I must wake extremely early (4:30 am) to get ready to catch the train to Machu Picchu on Day 4.

Anthony Lujan Photography
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