Day 21-24 / Cusco

After the endlessly long bus ride, we first looked for a hostel in Cusco. We stumbled upon an inconspicuous door that turned out to be a very nice backpacker hotel. We each got a bed in an 8-person dormitory, but there is no one else here, very convenient. There is breakfast, a kitchen, and a foosball table. So far, it's actually the best hotel.

Cusco is located at an altitude of about 3400 meters, well, high. You notice this especially because things that are not particularly strenuous, like climbing stairs, leave you completely out of breath and you quickly get headaches. That's why on the day of arrival, we first looked around the hotel a bit before taking a city tour on Wednesday. There are countless small shops that all sell more or less the same things, small fabric llamas, sweaters, bracelets, bags... Everywhere you meet indigenous people walking with llamas through the alleys. There was everything from clothes to cow heads at a huge market.

On Thursday, we ventured a bit further away. After a quite strenuous climb, we arrived at the Inca site of Sacsayhuamán, a ruin that, although only 20% of its original condition remains, was really large. From here, we had a great view over the whole city, which was supposed to look like a puma as a whole picture. We didn't see much of that, but why not. The walls of the ruins consisted of huge, precisely stacked stone blocks, some of which were said to weigh up to 300 tons in a travel guide, but we couldn't imagine that at all. Nevertheless, they certainly weren't easy to move. How one stone was put on top of another is not known. In front of the ruin was a large grassy area, the first meadow I have seen here. We took a little break near a herd of llamas before we visited two more ruins.

Today, on Friday, we took a collectivo to Ollantaytambo. Beforehand, we were told that the journey would take 3 hours, and when we arrived after 1.5 hours, we were a bit surprised because here you can generally add 1-3 hours to the time estimates. Surprise, there was also the ruin of a former Inca site here. They tend to be similar, large, on a mountain, mostly broken but also well-preserved, very straight and well crafted. The travel guide described this ruin, just like yesterday's and many others, as 'one of the most important places' and as a 'church and administrative center'.

On the opposite mountain slope, the Incas had their storehouses, where we also walked to.

Afterwards, we wanted to find a small, hidden pool somewhere in the forest, described by a blogger, which should be reached after a 40-minute hike. After about 1.5 hours, we had the feeling that we might have walked too far. The landscape was beautiful, but after exploring several small side paths and being chased away by dogs once, we turned around. We had actually walked over half an hour too far, but in the end, we still found the pool, although it didn't look as nice as described. The water was gone, except for a small amount, and the pool looked very muddy and musty, not suitable for bathing. When we checked again, the article from the person who had been here was from 2015. It seems to have changed a lot in 3 years. We were picked up on the road by a van to drive back to Cusco, very worn out.

~Lenja