Cuzco is definitely a William/Sharon-type place. We can be travel posers yet again and pretend that we are aging-hippy backpackers. Lots of coffee shops, internet cafes and street cafes highly suitable for elevenses (see Pooh Bear for clarification if you do not know what that means).
Cuzco was an Inca stonghold until the invasion of the Spanish colonials who then trashed the place. There are still quite a few buildings built on Inca foundations. Truly amazing how they jig-sawed all the huge diorite blocks together with no mortar. And diorite is an igneous rock that is very hard indeed. You can see it here www.unique-southamerica-travel-experience.com/images/inca-stonework-copia.jpg Equally interesting is how the Inca empire was only 100 years old when it sucumbed to Pizarro and his boys. Short and sweet.
The streets are generally narrow with balconies that look rather like the Egyptian mashrabea hareem balconies. In spite of dire warnings about pick-pockets, bag slashers etc, the tourism boom has certainly cleaned things up in Cuzco, tho´presumably at a price. One still has to be street-savvy but at no time have we felt in the least intimidated. It is taking a while to get used, once again, to the vaguries of the developing world. A phone system that is mysterious at best, time-keeping that is equally tenuous and an incessant (but very gracious) cadre of High Andes Indians wanting to sell us one trinket or another.
Equally vague is our travel agent, ExplorAndes, but if all goes according to plan, we mountain bike in the Sacred Valley tomorrow and then go to a huge regional market on Sunday, returning to Cuzco on Sunday afternoon before leaving for Macchu Picchu on Monday. I suspect that it will be rather a “back-to-basics” adventure only to be topped by the subsequent Lake Tittikaka kayaking when we will be staying with families living on the Lake. I CAN do it !!!!!
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