Our Tour

We transferred over to our hotel for the tour in Cusco and met our tour group on Sunday. Nilton was our tour leader, he lives in Cusco. There was Ben and Nick, they were friends from England. Dave was a Marine Medic from England. Pierre was a medical student in England. Debbie was also from England, traveling by herself. They were all young, 20's or 30's. Troy, Carrie and I were the oldest.

Here we are in the hotel lobby waiting to meet our tour group.

We went out together to tour the city shortly after we met. I learned that the big, open courtyard we passed everyday on the Avenida del Sol was the Incan Temple of the Sun. It's all under the Cathedral. Well, the Spanish built their cathedral on top of the Incan Temple. That's what they did, they detroyed what they could that was Incan and built their thing on top of it. We took a tour. These are all pictures from that tour.

Inca wall in Cusco.

Nilton pointing out the angles and how they fit together.

The Cathedral built on top of the Inca temple. The tower had to be rebuilt in the 1800's because of Earthquake damage.

Courtyard  at the Temple of the Sun. This is in the middle of the city.

Later at the hotel we met to go over our list of things that we would need for the Inca Trail. We went out for dinner later together. I had trout on this night, which I learned was always a good choice in Cusco. Quinoa is also very good. I ate Quinoa soup often on our trip, it was served a lot during our camping also. It's a grain, a little like rice.

The next morning we visited the large statue of Christ that stands above the city. We stopped in the Sacred Valley and took in the views of the farmlands, the river, the mountains. We went to a wildlife refuge and checked out some llamas, alpacas, birds, pumas and condors, all rescued.

 The Christ statue above the city.

 Looking back down on the city from the hill.

 It was a chilly morning at the wildlife refuge.

 Here's Madison with a tropical bird.

 I never did catch all the differences between llamas, alpacas and other cousins related to the camel. I don't know what this is, but it has very long fur and likes to pose for cameras.

 Pumas!

 We posed with the condor. While our guide told us to be very wary of it.

 Nilton explains all the different kinds of corn grown in the valley.

 This is a view of the Sacred Valley from the road.

 I believe the name of this village is Pisac. Here Kalyn is bargaining with a vendor over the price of a wooden carved guinea pig key chain for Alina.

 Cool tree. Everyone tells me these trees are very old. I don't think I ever got it straight from anyone what they are called.

This is a very famous mural on Avenida del Sol that I see all over the internet. Kalyn took a picture as we were back in Cusco picking up last minute things (bottled water, decongestant) for our hiking trip.
We would have to pack our things in duffel bags tonight. We had to make sure we had no more than 5 lbs of stuff in the bag, and there would also be a 2lb sleeping bag in it. The porters will carry these for us (they can carry up to 50 lbs) and we would carry day packs for our jackets and water, chap stick, snacks, whatever else we needed access to during the day.

I will write about our trail trip tomorrow. Of course, tomorrow is the first day of school and I will be dead tired, but maybe I will have a chance to write before bed!