cusco

we flew to cusco early on the 29th. the elevation is over 11,000 feet so the early afternoon was rather tame allowing us acclimate to the altitude. peru has a plant, entitled coca, that is delivered in various forms such as tea and helps minimize altitude sickness. it is not allowed in the us and was not recommended to be consumed if you have a drug test for work in the next few weeks. however every place in cusco offers it for free.

in the afternoon we took a tour of the city of cusco which has 2 million visitors annually. in the town square there ate a to of children and old ladies posing with alpaca; however, if you take a picture they chase you for a propino (tip).

after walking through the town square we hit up the catholic church (surprise surprise). by the way all the churches look the same to me at this point. next we went to the sun church, an incan church that had rooms dedicated to the sun, moon, stars, etc. the missionaries painted over the stone walls to try and convert the locals. last we went to saxsaywaman (pronounced sexy woman), which was breath taking. basically, the incans built a puma shaped structure out of huge stones (think ten thousand pounds) and chiseled them so they fit perfectly together (using rocks). the puma head is saxsaywaman and is on top of the mountain overlooking cusco.

we went to dinner in the city, but had an early night since many of us were exhausted from the altitude.