Cusco and Machu Picchu

Cusco

 So the next stop in the grand adventure was Cusco in Peru to see Machu Picchu, and oh my lord, so worth it. This was my number one goal to see in South America, and it is in fact worth to go there just for that, however it is nice to see some other stuff as well when you are there :)

Cusco itself is quite the beautiful city I would say, and the cathedral there is one of the most beautiful ones I've seen, the interior is mind numbing, intricate wooden carvings, truly a master piece. Sadly, no pictures allowed :( So Google it I guess. The surrounding area is beautiful, so I recommend spending a few days in Cusco so you get proper time to explore, we could buy passes that granted you access to several of the neary sites, lots of cool stuff to see! So yeah, exploring, eating guinea pig, lots of old rocks.

Oh yeah, altitude sickness, christ. When I arrived I got a splitting headache, went straight to bed. Was good after a power nap. But, I got winded after walking a flight of stairs.

I tried to not include as many pictures, but, hey, what can you do, it's a cool place.

A local museum in the midst of town, some paintings etc. The exterior quite nice! 

View from a height in Cusco,

Some sort of festival going on, quite nice!

No traffic cones or anything, this was how they marked a missing manhole cover, a rock, in the middle of the road. It aint stupid if it works I guess xD

So yeah, here comes the rocks, lots of ruins within walking distance of the city centre.

3765 meters above sealevel!

And here we go, my favourite part, the road to Machu Picchu and the views from there. We got up at 0400 to get a bus, to a train at 0600, to get to the small town where we jumped on busses that drove us up the road to our final destination. I spent about seven hours walking around here. Apparently they are going to limit the time people can spend there, so go as soon as you can I guess. The seven hours went by fast. For info on the city itself, see this , Wikipedia is way better at explaing stuff than me :) Again I apologize for the amount of pivtures and video, but this is one of the coolest places I've ever been, so yeah, kinda wish to share it as best as I can with you guys!

Video of the vire from the entrance, quite the spectacular view, this place is fantastic!

Vire from the "top" of the citadel, you guys need to go here!

These two "ponds" were used to look at the sun/stars etc so you did not have to look directly at the sun. 

Here they apparently tried to carve the stone to look like the mountain in the background.

And of course, the cliché photo everyones takes I guess :)

I went and explored one of the two roads out of the city, so after following a trail along the mountain side, we came to this "dead end", locked off by a gate. I can see why though, there is no chance in hell I would walk that path further on, look at that ramshackle bridge xD

Video from the trail, quite narrow indeed!

I also went in the opposite direction, to the ehr, dawn gate? This is where people comes down when they walk the Inca trail now, so in the picture above is the view from the gate and down on the city. Below is the view from the city, towards the gate.

And of course the had Llamas there! They weren't that interested, until I got my hands on some orange peel!

I did a few other tours as well to the surrounding area.

This was basically a science lab for agriculture, where they had different crops in the different sircles etc. Smart people :)

The salt terraces, damn cool to see :) A small river runs through the mountain here, and when it comes out the salt level are really high, so they made these terraces to "mine" the salt!

More crops terraces.

To be hones, can't remember what hese buildings in the mountain was.

So this is a bit tricky, but in this mountainside you are supposed to see the face of a king. If you look on the lefthand side, and a little above the middle, you can see a nose, and eye and a crown i guess kinda?

We went to a local chruch, no pictures were allowed from the inside, but, yolo!

Random statue in the Cusco

ANd from the hostel I've stayed at, Millhouse something, quite damn nice, cool place to be so I can recommend staying here if you are headed in this direction.

Had to try on of the local dishes, so yeah, guinea pig, the texture is kinda like chicken, just a bit darker. The taste, not so much, not bad, but just.. I don't know, weird? Well, Veni Vidi Vici.

 

The golden Inca king on the main square, bling bling.

Well, that's it for now, thanks for reading. I'll be back with the Galapagos update soonish, so much stuff there, christ.