(Writing this on Jan 22nd. Back on ship and now docked in Pisco, Peru.) We met in theatre at 9am on Thursday for our 3 day excursion to Cusco. It was a short bus ride to the Lima airport where we boarded a Star Peru airline flight to Cusco. The plane was a 78 passenger BAE 146, British made 4 engine jet. Very comfortable plane but we had a 40 minute air traffic delay after boarding and it got very warm on the plane. We took off an hour late. The flight was just over an hour long and landed in Cusco at 1pm. As I said the elevation in Cusco is just over 11,000 feet. I could tell the difference as I walked off the plane. I was panting by the time I had walked off the jet bridge. To combat altitude sickness we drank LOTS of water, took aspirins, and walked slowly trying not to exert ourselves. Thankfully we did not have any major problems. They were selling cans (aerosol type) of oxygen in the terminal for $15 so I bought one. Never had to use it. One of our group had lots of problems and was on the big, green bottles most of the time. The hotel had them and cost $130 each.
We met Javier, our guide, and the 18 of us in our group boarded a bus and headed to the main square of Cusco for lunch in a lovely local restaurant. After a typical Peruvian lunch which included potatoes, beef, and rice pudding, back on the bus to do some touring. First stop of at the Korikancha Temple of the Sun. Cusco was the capitol of the Incan Empire until 1535 when the Spanish Conquistadors conquered them. It took only 160 conquistadors to conquer the 40,000 Incas there because the Spanish soldiers had guns and armor while the Incas used spears. The Incas worshiped the sun and moon and the Spanish brought Catholicism to Peru. Nowadays, most Pervuians are Catholic. So this first stop was the ruins of a place where they had worshiped the sun. Second stop was at Sacayhuaman, the ruins of an Incan fortress consisting of 3 walls made of huge stones. Some of these weighed 125 tons and were polished to fit so tightly that you could not put a slip of paper in the joints. Only man power was used to move the stones over 2 miles from a limestone quarry, polished by rubbing other stones to smooth the surfaces to fit perfectly, and they used ramps to get stones on top of each other. Logs were probably used to roll the stones to the site. This required thousands of men and many years to construct.
Then we were taken to our hotel, the Libertador Palacio in downtown Cusco. Our rooms were small with paper thin walls but clean. We would be here for two nights. We met again at 7pm for a 40 minute demonstration by a local man of many of the musical instruments used by the ancient Incas and still used today by Peruvians. After that we had a nice dinner (beef again but tough this time) and then off to get some rest. Unfortunately, it was difficult to sleep because of the altitude and several trips to bathroom because of all the water we were drinking. Wake call was coming at 3:30am. OUCH!
