Peru Travels, Part II: Cuzco

We landed in Cuzco/Cusco and immediately sensed a huge difference from Lima. Woah, it's SUNNY here. Like REALLY sunny.  That was the case for our entire stay in Cuzco, and apparently for every day in Cuzco, because even the local children's school uniforms include safari hats to keep the sun off their faces.  We had also been bracing ourselves for the altitude in Cuzco.  It is advised to spend at least a day there before trying to do Machu Picchu, so that your body can adjust to the altitude (over 11,000 ft above sea level), and boy did we need those two days.  Luckily, none of us got altitude sickness (which apparently feels something like a bad hangover) because we were careful to hydrate, hydrate, and hydrate as we had been warned to do.  But the thin air affected us for sure.  We were huffing and puffing just walking up one flight of stairs, and my out-of-shape self was literally out of breath after taking a long drink of water.  Not my proudest moment.

But Cuzco was beautiful!  It wasn't really what we expected, only because we had no idea what to expect other than the image I had in my head of a wall of Incan stones.  Our first night there we walked around the Plaza Mayor and saw more tourists than locals.  In the historic city center everything is catered to tourists, from the lodging and food to the ladies offering their massage services (not figuratively speaking, I mean like actual massages--which was very tempting to me) to the local police force doing a little choreographed trick show on their motorcycles (this is not a joke). There are little markets tucked into every block, and the locals will do anything to exploit themselves for your money, including dressing up in traditional Incan dress and carrying llamas and baby lambs around to pose for pictures with you (I caved. Only once).

SO MANY THINGS TO BUY

tourists will pay for anything, including a photo with this man and his shaggy dog

Cuzco has spread out up the surrounding hills, which makes for some really amazing views at night

see? this really happened

The next day was Friday, and since the coming Sunday (July 28th) was Peruvian Independence Day, there was a big parade and festivities all day, including bells/cannons/fireworks going off at all hours of the day and night, literally. That got a bit bothersome, but the parade was cute because all the school kids got the day off to march in the parade along with all the city officials and military groups! And we finally saw the locals (cusqueños) because everybody and their brother turned out for this parade.  

Peruvian babies are giving Chilean babies a run for their money

stayin' informed

these girls kept pointing at me and giggling? I'm gonna assume it was meant sweetly because when I finally brought my camera up to take a picture they got really excited and waved for it

we found the marching to be uncomfortably Nazi-esque...

THE RIOT PO ARE BACK. apparently they are called for any gathering of any kind

Then we found one of the Incan walls! You remember learning about how the Incas, somehow, without tools or machinery, got their giant rocks into square shapes and fit them together perfectly for all their buildings and walls. They're still standing in several parts of the city! 

this was when I caved. don't pretend like you wouldn't have done the same for these adorable little ladies and their llama (his name was Pablo)

More wandering around the city. Not noteworthy, but we passed two cops enjoying ice cream cones and the photo just delights me:

Then things took a weird turn, because we found ourselves in prime viewing spots for the military parade that was heading up one of the main avenues in town. At first, we thought "oh, this will be cool!," but then we heard them chanting and saw their rocket launchers and noticed the increasingly-creepier face paint and changed our minds to "what the hell kind of parade is this?..." It was still a parade, don't worry, it was just a weird, creepy, militarized one.  And there were these people running around in creepy masks to keep the crowd back far enough, and they just really did not help things.

what are you stop looking at me!

We made it to one of the big markets in Cuzco, where we strolled around and I chuckled to myself when I found this lady taking a nice little nap among her fruit:

That was pretty much it for Cuzco.  From there we took a van/bus to a nearby town to catch the train that would take us to Aguas Calientes, the town below Machu Picchu.  On the way out we got to see a lot of the city that is not touristy, and the huge disparity was a little unsettling to me. In a big city it wouldn't strike me as weird to see wealthy central parts geared to tourist profit and much poorer outskirts, but Cuzco is only a city of about 500,000, and I'm talkin about a HUGE disparity. You can definitely tell where they put all their money, but I guess the tourism industry is their main source of profit so it's a wise investment. Still though, it didn't sit right with me. All three of us agreed that Cuzco was pretty but way too commercialized/touristy and we wouldn't have wanted to spend any more time there. On to Machu Picchu!