Exhilarating Day!

After 14+ hours of sleep, I do believe we are caught up! Everyone woke up this morning feeling great. After coffee and breakfast at the hotel, we hired a driver and car to take us on a tour of some of the archeological sites around Cuzco (Saqsayhuaman, pronounced sexy woman, Qenqo, Tambomachay, and Pukapukata) then headed about an hour away to the Sacred Valley in Pisac. The ruins at Pisac were the most impressive thing we saw today. There were huge terraced gardens, winding stone steps up the side of mountains, tiny caves to walk through, and remnants of temples and workers’ houses. We hiked to approximately 12,400 feet today. It was a pretty strenuous trek! The air was very thin and if was sometimes difficult to get a good breath.


We stopped at a restaurant and had our first meal of alpaca and Cusquena cerveza. No, Alpaca doesn’t taste like chicken….it tastes like beef!

This area of Peru is so very poor. Both adults and children surround you trying to sell you their homemade wares. At least they are trying to earn a living.

The driver from Hotel Torre Dorada was excellent as were the two additional guides we hired. We saw beautiful scenery and lots and lots of huge stones that the Incas had creatively hand stacked to last, thus far, forever. I have a feeling this is only the beginning of the stones we’ll see over the next 10 days! Stay tuned.