Cusco and the Sacred Valley

Adding up the time we were there before and after our Inca Trail trek, we ended up spending close to 3 weeks in Cusco. We spent some days pre-trek adjusting to the altitude and enjoying the amenities of such a large and tourist friendly city (yoga classes and falafel galore), and then at the end, we spent a little over a week volunteering with a family through Workaway before we finally decided to move on. We got to meet up with a friend from the US (Jacqueline and her dog Jimmy) who had been living there for 3 months and had lots of tips.

Cusco really blew me away - we had seen so many well-preserved Spanish Colonial Plaza de Armas’ and cathedrals and worn cobblestone streets in Peru before we arrived, and I really didn’t have much of an expectation. I was focused on it being our starting point for Machu Picchu but it was so much more.  The scale of the gorgeous historic city center, the way the city glistened at sunset as the lights came on, the steep cobblestoned streets in the artsy San Blas neighborhood, the wide variety of restaurants and bars, the beautiful textiles for sale everywhere you turned, the Inca ruins surrounding town, and the seemingly nonstop parades and celebrations that filled the Plaza and the streets most afternoons made for a very comfortable and fun few weeks.

See what I'm saying about these pretty streets?

A llama we encountered on the way to the post office

Plaza de Armas

Another thing that made me like Cusco: I finally took a round of antibiotics after several weeks of on and off ickiness (self-diagnosed giardia, I believe) and so I spent the last week of our time there feeling better than I had in a long time and loving the fact that food was appealing again.

I also took a week of private Spanish lessons (2 hours every afternoon after our volunteer work) and felt like I was able to progress quickly. 3 months in, I really do feel like my Spanish is getting better and it makes me so happy.

It seemed like there was at least one parade or celebration in the street every day

For this Workaway gig, we ended up with a family that owns a tour business. They are working on remodeling a large empty building on the outskirts of town to turn into a hostel in addition to continuing to build their company. We stayed in a dorm type setting on the top floor of their apartment building with up to 6 other volunteers, and did some work translating on their website, sanding walls and cleaning the place up. It was a bit of a frustrating week for us, as we got very little direction and didn’t feel particularly productive most of the time (too many volunteers, not enough work) and day-to-day we spent very little time practicing Spanish or seeing their family. But, we did have fun with some of the volunteers we were living with and Luis and his family were very kind to us - we even ended up attending a wedding with them one of the Saturdays we were there (somewhat unintentionally, while wearing hiking boots, which made it all the more hilarious and interesting).

Luis and his daughter covered in confetti at the wedding

Ladies enjoying some Cusquena beer at the wedding

A bit dusty after sanding walls in the hostel

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Group bonding with our workaway crew

We spent one night in Urubamba in the Sacred Valley that surrounds Cusco and took a little day trip to the Salineras de Maras - salt flats that have been mined by local families for hundreds of years. Rounding a corner in the dry mountains to the sight of these glistening white terraced flats was amazing!

Serious cactus in Urubamba

A fountain in the plaza to make an Iowan happy - topped with maize!

Incredible salt flats of Maras

In the end, we grew a bit tired of the super-touristy scene in Cusco (being bombarded with offers of massages, tours, and alpaca sweaters every time we walked across town) and felt a week at that volunteer gig was enough, so we decided to move on to Arequipa a little sooner than planned to meet up with our friend Melissa.