Cusco, The Archeological Capital of Peru

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divebuddies

5 min readJan 4, 2020

Inca ruins. Stones are precisely assembled with each other.

After a stop in Paris to say 👋 to my sister, we arrived in Peru! The country of the Quechua people and the Inca. First stop, Cusco. (Yes, flight… agaiiiin).

Cusco City

Incredible view on the Andes from the plane going to Cusco.

Cusco is the perfect base city. There are so many things to look around. From archeological sites to mountains.

The city is enjoyable and the colonial style beautiful.

The city itself is beautiful. We spent a day lingering around. No tour here, just the “Lonely Planet” to guide us. But first, local breakfast. Kind of quinoa sweet soup. It sounds strange, but it’s good!

Our tour started at the main square, the Plaza de Armas. It’s a nice square with lot of activities.

We moved around and went to a chocolate museum (of course 😋). They give free information and tasting. Perfect introduction of the Peruvian chocolate.

The streets are very touristic and there are people asking you about massage or tours at every corner. Funniest, is people walking with alpacas 🦙 so that you can take a picture.

The tour ends on the hills of the city. From up there, you seen the whole Cusco. Difficult to see that the altitude is around 3400 m right?

Superbe view of the city. Well deserved after the “hike” there.

Inca Ruins

If you go to Peru, you probably want to see some Inca ruins. Around Cusco are found dozens of sites. To visit them, it’s a bit weird. You must buy a ticket which covers multiple sites. You don’t have much options and the tickets are only valid a few days. Thus, the sites not being located at the same place, it becomes pretty hard to use public transportation to check out everything. No, the way to do it is to take a tour. Around the city, there are tons of agencies. Prepare to bargain 😉.

We took a day trip which covers all the principals sites. Yes, we are lazy and wanted to do everything in one day. No, I did not take this tour because it’s called “VIP” 😝. The tour was great, especially the buffet 🤩. (For once, we where really not disappointed!) and it only costed $15. On top of which we had to buy this entry ticket package covering these sites: $17 valid for 2 days. (As I said, good luck to do the sites by public transportation in 2 days…). So it ends up quite okay 👌. I really don’t miss Africa for that…

Back to the tour itself. We spent around 30 minutes for the small sites and 1 hour for bigger ones. It’s quite okay, although you could spend a day just for Ollantaytambo or Pisaq.

Culture Stop

We first stopped to a cultural center. They presented us some traditional ways of coloring the Alpaca wool. It was interesting, even if the goal was to make us buy souvenirs 😉.

Chinchero

Rainbows are said to be born here. Beautiful terraces and a nice colonial church. Although built upon Inca temple…

Moray

Very scenic! I really wanted to go there. There are four circles in very good state. Not to be missed. Plus, getting there is incredible. You have a beautiful view on the Andes.

Largest circle of the four. No wonder why it’s the cover of the “Lonely Planet”Z

Salineras

This is an extra in the tour (well just $3) because it’s a privately owned location. It’s not really a site but these salt mines are impressive. Around 4000 holes. Interestingly, it’s not one owner as multiple families have their designated holes.

The salted mines where not full of salt as it’s the rainy season.

Ollantaytambo

I guess it was my favorite site of the day. After a small walk up the terraces, there is a view on the valley and mountains. It’s also here that we got introduced to the obsession of Incas with the sun. Very interesting.

Try to find the face of the Inca on the left of the mountain.

Pisaq

A huge site, really! Although I préfères the ruins of Ollantaytambo.

Rainbow Mountain

We did another day trip to go see these mountains ($15). This mountain range consists of an impressive stratification of 5 types of rocks/minerals. Don’t ask me more because they did not provide more information. Yeah the tour itself was crap compare to the other one. It’s a recent site, 2015. Why? The range was completely covered by snow before that…

It’s a long ride from Cusco, around 4 hours. But the spectacle is worth it.

At the parking. Not yet the rainbow mountain, but already nice.

The hike is super short, 45 minutes. But it starts at ~4700 m. No worries, if you feel low from the altitude, you can ride a horse. And close to the top, there are stands selling food! At 5000 m on the mountain in the nowhere yes…

We got super lucky with the weather. We just got enough time to go close to the top to take some pictures and the clouds came. It was sudden and violent. Lot of wind, then rain, hail and finally snow. We were completely soaked when we reached the car!