Arrived in Cusco!! And it’s glorious. Pictures to follow. Our accommodations have so far proven to be an excellent choice, helped in part by the wifi in all the rooms, and desktop computers in the lobby for guests to use. (Though those amenities are far superseded by the fact that the hotel is in a gorgeous old part of the city, has an extremely personable and helpful staff, and an unlimited supply of coco tea to boot!
We arrived in Cusco a little later than anticipated, on account of having to wait around to claim our luggage at the airport in Lima before clearing customs and boarding our connecting flight. For some reason our travel agent booked us on flights little more than an hour apart, and when you add in the fact that we were 20 or so minutes late arriving, the odds were not on our side…
What WAS helpful was that we chose the right flight to miss, as there was another plane leaving for Cusco just over an hour after we were initially scheduled to depart. We took a quick, highly entertaining taxi ride to our hotel, wherein we got to witness firsthand how masterful our driver’s spatial awareness was as he zipped past vehicles all over the road, some of whom wisely folded in their side mirrors to avoid losing them as we whizzed past.
After getting a rundown of the best local cuisine in the area from the hotel manager, we took advantage of the lack of snow here and decidedly un-Prairie-like temperatures to drink coco tea (apparently helpful for dealing with the altitude) on the Casa’s terrace while our room was being readied.
We’re off to explore around the city this afternoon (another traveller told us there’s a festival in the main square this weekend that we may check out), followed by a light dinner somewhere.
Will plan to post pictures soon, but in the meantime, here’s the link to the place where we’re staying for our first couple of nights in Cusco before we meet up with the G Adventures folks:
http://www.casasanblas.com/
The photo gallery for the hotel specifically is: http://www.casasanblas.com/casa-san-blas.htm, though their main photo gallery has some wonderful shots of the country in general: www.casasanblas.com/photo-gallery.htm
We’re planning on heading to bed at a ridiculously early hour tonight, given our lack of rest the past few days, but tomorrow it’ll be off for more explorations in and around Cusco. Adios for now!
P.S. I wrote this post yesterday (Saturday), so am working on the blog and pictures to go along with our tour and activities today (Sunday), and will hopefully have something up soon.