Cusco

Cusco is a fun, albeit very touristy town. There are lots of locals dressed up in traditional clothes trying to sell their wares or get you to pay to take pictures of them. There are even people walking around with Llamas. No matter what you tip though, they seem to want more. We spent a day walking up cobble stone streets to the San Blas area, where we went window shopping and got a great view of the town. We noticed a little boy squatting next to a fountain to go the bathroom, when he saw us he looked at us, smiled, waved, and said hola! It was an odd sight!

We ended the night by going to a dance recital where they demonstrated several different traditional dances in various brightly colored outfits. I loved the skirts the girls would wear; every time they spun around they would spin up.

The next day we went to Pisoc, in the sacred valley, which is known for a large market they have every Sunday. The market was huge! We spent about three hours walking through all the stalls, shopping, and taking pictures with the local kids. The poor little kids running around definitely tugged on my heart strings, and we gave a few of them money for pictures. I really loved everything being sold in Peru. Lots of stuff was made out of Alpaca fur and was extremely soft. There were lots of stone figurines of llamas, pumas, etc.

Cusco has an elevation of 11,200, and we could definitely feel it. No matter what we were pretty much always short of breath, and any exercise would get me winded and shoot my heart rate up. I walked up the one flight of stairs to our room and my heart rate shot up to 120 bpm!