After a very long series of flights, we are settled and have begun the slow process of acclimating in Cusco. Friday was a long day with connections in Cleveland and Newark before finally heading out to Lima. The flight to Lima was not unbearably long (only about 7 hours) but the seats were very tight and Kelly was next to a Peruvian man who did not have the same concept of personal space as Kelly did. We can´t complain too much, though, because the flights to Peru were free on Alan´s Delta SkyMiles.
We arrived in Lima at around 9:30pm local time (they are only one hour behind eastern standard time). It was very foggy but warmer than we expected, maybe 65 degrees. We stayed the night at second home peru (http://www.secondhomeperu.com/) a great bed and breakfast right on the Pacific Ocean. The owner is the daugter of a famous Peruvian artist (Delphin) and her father's beatiful paintings and sculptures (many of busty naked latina women, much to Alan´s delight) adorned virtually every wall. Our travel companions Clark and Jessica Case arrived at the hotel after us, at about midnight. We had a couple of cervezas on the balcony overlooking the foggy ocean and then headed to bed to catch an early flight.
Early the next morning, we all had coffee and bannas and petted Janna the house dog before we headed out for our flight to Cusco at around 7:30 am. Our flight to Cusco went smooth and before we new it we were flying over the Andes and then arriving in sunny Cusco at around 11:00am. We are staying at a really neat place here called Ninos Hotel II (http://www.ninoshotel.com/). It is very quaint with brightly painted shutters and warm wool blankets. And as we found out this morning great breakfast (we had a local berry jam with fresh bread, cocoa tea which helps with altitude sickness, banana pancakes and scrambled eggs).
Yesterday was a full day. The four of us toured the main square in Cusco, being plagued relatively little by people hawking their fares and their restaurants. We had an incredible high-end lunch ($50 per couple) at a Spanish tapas restaurant Cicciolina, but the food was absolutely incredible, including meals of fresh homemade pasta (we saw it drying in the window), lamb, local alpaca and ossombuco! We spent much of the afternoon exploring the square area and sampling the local beer. We had a more traditional dinner at a local restaurant with entrees costing $5 apiece with alot of food to eat. We ended the night at a local nightclub Ukuku´s Pub featuring local Peruvian talent. All of the music was in Spanish, but we recognized many of the tunes. The most interesting part was the lead musician who blew on a multitude of those wooden flutes that you hear in many Central and South
American locations where tourists thrive. But the bar was filled primarily with local Peruvians who all seemed to really enjoy the ambiance, as did we. Kelly noticed that the Peruvian women were much more reserved in their appearance and dancing than the Brazilian women we saw in Rio, but then again these women had more than underwear on!The biggest thing that we are having to deal with right now is, of course, the altitude. Cusco is at about 11,000 feet above sea level and we are definitely feeling it after having stayed at the beach the day before. We´ve taken a few naps just in the short day and half that we have been here and we are trying to drink lots and lots of water. Today is definitely better than yesterday
although our hearts still feel like they are racing even when we are lounging doing nothing. We plan on visiting some local ruins today, but otherwise we just want to hang out and slowly acclimate more. Our trekking tour company is picking us up at 4am, so we want to be well rested and ready. Obviously we won´t have Internet access on the Inca Trail for four days, but we´ll blog on our experiences there when we get back to ´civilization´in Cusco.
No comments:
Post a Comment