My Life And Times In Peru: Cusco & Machu Picchu

Last weekend was one of the best weekends I’ve had in Peru yet! Cuzco, Incan Ruins, and Machu Picchu in one weekend were a blast! We started of the weekend by flying out to Cusco on Thursday and taking it easy for the morning because of the altitude difference, we went from basically 0-1400ft. After taking a much needed nap we went to tour Cusco. We first went to the Cusco Cathedral, that place was ginormous. The cathedral had at least ten sanctuaries, a court yard, a choir room, and on top of all that it was attached to Incan ruins. We toured all of it, but let me tell ya’, the tour guide was a ‘tad’ bland. I am now an expert on all of the different shades of red that were used to paint the cathedral. We then went to out to eat to a pretty bomb pizza place. After we just toured the streets of Cusco, and they were beautiful! It felt like I was in Europe. They were all made out of brick and super old. On the way back to our hotel we almost got pick pocketed by some 15 y old girl! Luckily we noticed that she was creepin’ on us and came up with a system. We’d say ‘Goons be lurkin’ whenever there was a sketch person around, and oh boy did it come in handy. That creeper was all over us for a good ten minutes.
The next day we toured all around Cusco and the surrounding towns. We saw more Incan ruins Saqsywaman, to which the tour guide said sounded like Sexy Women (She ruined that name for me), Qorikancha, and Ollantaytambo. All these places were magnificent and made completely out of stone. Ollantaytambo was the most impressive, it was a giant fortress built right into the mountains, you could see for miles at the top. After Ollantaytambo we headed back to the bus to head home. But me and a friend decided to go to one of the shops quickly and ended up getting lost.

Finally it was Saturday, Machu Picchu! Machu Picchu was amazing, everything was made out of perfectly placed and cut stone. I was surprised at how enormous it was. There was also a lot to do around the city also, walking paths, lookout points etc. A group of about ten of us decided to go hiking to the Sun temple (Not quite sure if that’s its name) and that was the greatest decision I made all day. I could see all of Machu Picchu from this point and beyond, and a got a really sweet looking stamp in my passport.
After seeing all of Machu Picchu it amazes me that a civilization was able to do all of that so long ago. To think they didn’t have any tools, machines, or previous knowledge of what they were doing. They were such an advanced society, they even had a plumbing system to get waste out of the city, some modern cities still lack that. I still wonder how the Spanish were able to conquer the Incans when they were less modernized than them at the time.