Cusco Travel Report: Inca Capital, Rainbow Mountain & Tips

Contents of this post6 chapters

• 1The Horror Trip from Paracas to Cusco
• 2Welcome to Cusco
• 3San Pedro Market and Plaza de Armas
• 4Maras and Moray, Salt Terraces and Inca Site
• 5Onward to the Salkantay Trek
• 6Frequently Asked Questions

Advertisement: this post contains affiliate links. If you book through them, I receive a small commission; the price stays the same for you.

The Horror Trip from Paracas to Cusco

Once again, we booked a bus. This time, the journey was supposed to be a bit longer. A whopping 18 hours! Last time, we had a great experience. We sat upstairs in a double-decker bus, the ride was great, and we could lie down perfectly. Now, we add 14 hours to that, and it's an absolute catastrophe!Crap! Our seats were in the lower section and right at the back of the bus. So, we couldn't adjust our seats all the way back like the other people. First problem. Moving would have been a solution if the whole bus hadn't been packed. Second problem: Right behind us was the air conditioning, and it wasn't by any means quiet. At one point, our entire lunch bag flew through half the bus and rolled into what seemed to be leaked toilet water in the corridor. Lovely! But we couldn't really eat anyway, as we were constantly sliding from A to B or bouncing up and down due to the 1000 curves, mountains, potholes, and whatever else there was. The fact is: We were not feeling well at all! An absolute horror trip!

We made 10 crosses when we finally reached Cusco!

Welcome to Cusco

An impressive city, located at an altitude of 3400 meters! The highest mountain in Germany can't compete with that. Here in Cusco and the surrounding area, you'll first learn about altitude sickness. The higher you are, the less oxygen you have. So, if you travel or climb too quickly to a higher altitude, symptoms like headaches, nausea, dizziness, or fatigue can occur.

Now we're somewhat unsure if we might have perceived our bus journey as an extreme horror trip for this reason too! It took a while for our headaches to go away and our well-being to become more bearable again.

Here are some pictures of Cusco:

We were finally looking forward to our Airbnb. Huge kitchen, large bedroom, living room with TV. Nice. However, at 9 degrees Celsius without heating, not so nice. Actually, we didn't pay attention to whether heating was included when booking (since it was definitely a given for us). No dice. It was colder in our apartment than outside. After a long back and forth with the landlady and contacting the Airbnb team, she finally brought us a space heater. She took a photo of the electricity meter and explained that we would have to pay for the consumption at the end of the stay. So, the landlady wasn't really friendly and showed no understanding that we didn't want to freeze in our apartment (or sit at the table with a winter jacket). Thankfully, Airbnb had a different opinion, and we didn't incur any additional costs.

Somewhat recovered from the horror bus tour and finally warmed up by our new space heater, we went on a tour of the beautiful city of Cusco!

San Pedro Market and Plaza de Armas

First, we went to the San Pedro Market.A huge market full of small food stalls, groceries, and clothing stores with local products. The best part was definitely the delicious avocado toast with fried cheese for only 3 soles (about 80 cents).

Here, we also bought the so-called Coca Leaves..

A few facts about dried Coca leaves:

• Tastes like green tea.
• Effect: comparable to coffee
• Can be drunk as tea
• Traditionally, about 10 leaves are rolled together, chewed a little, and then left in the cheek for 20-30 minutes.
• Supposed to prevent altitude sickness (helps to suppress fatigue, hunger, and cold)
• No risk of addiction
• Illegal in Germany (so unfortunately, we can't bring any for you to try!)

Next, we went to the old town to the"Plaza de Armas".A beautiful square with old houses and their beautiful wooden balconies. Everything is decorated for Christmas, there are small food stalls on every corner, or vendors walking around with their alpacas. And alpacas are soooooooo cute!!! Overall, the city is very clean. However, there are a lot of free-roaming dogs here, so there is a lot of poop on the ground just outside the city center. Also, here again, you could easily disappear into a huge hole in the middle of the sidewalk (So: Watch your Steps!).

Here in Cusco, it's not uncommon to see dead, plucked chickens for sale everywhere on the ground, tables, or in plastic buckets, or even the delicacy "Guinea Pig" (a type of guinea pig).

Out in the blazing sun, and not infrequently an insect or two crawls over the food. Clean, trimmed fingernails or any kind of gloves are not often seen on the vendors. The right word here, I think, would be: an acquired taste. But I think anyone who has been to Asia is toughened up! So Max and I eat the meat anyway, and for whatever reason we haven't had any stomach problems at all. Thank God! The food here is simply amazingly delicious and super cheap! You just shouldn't look too closely ;)! If someone now says: "I wouldn't eat that" – good luck finding food. Without chicken? Without pork? Hardly possible. Of course, there are vegetarian options here too. But our vegetarian options ordered at restaurants looked roughly like this: a sandwich with sausage, or rice with vegetables and, now and then by mistake, one, two, three small pieces of chicken. If you go to truly local restaurants, 99% of the time there isn't even a dish without meat, and you'll get a funny look if you simply want to order vegetables with rice. They don't do that. I suspect that many dishes are prepared and mixed in advance, so it's not possible to simply leave out the meat. Of course, there is some way to survive as a vegetarian, but it's tough. At least tougher than in Germany! They do have fresh vegetables and fruit, but you have to be careful about what you order and where.

Pictures speak louder than 1000 words:Pictures speak louder than 1000 words:

Cusco has half a million inhabitants and was once the capital of the Inca Empire. Therefore, you can book tour after tour here to learn about the life and culture of the Incas. For this, we got a combination ticket, the so-called"Boleto Turistico"This cost 130 soles and was valid for 10 days.

Maras and Moray: Salt Terraces and Inca Site

We first did the Maras y Moray Tour:

Moray is an ancient Inca site and was used for agriculture back then. For example, a lot of potatoes were planted in various varieties and colors. The water seeps away through the stones underground, so that there is no large accumulation of water.

For only 10 soles (2 euros extra), we could visit a mosaic of 4000 salt fields near Cusco

On the tour, we were also shown how a wide variety of fabrics are made. What was especially interesting was what they use to produce the dyes. On cactus leaves, for example, tiny parasites lurk that release a red liquid when squeezed.

Later, we strolled through the lovely Christmas market in Cusco, located right on the Plaza de Armas. Normally, the market only takes place once a year on December 24, but because of Corona it was spread over a few days. On every corner there was punch, candied apples, cotton candy, or fried pastries. Super delicious! 1,000 people were wandering around, and because of that it was sometimes quite difficult to even get from A to B. There's a looot to tell about Cusco, but in the next few days I'll first tell you about our very special adventure.

Onward to the Salkantay Trek

We embarked on one of the TOP 25 hikes in the world! The so-called Salkantay Trek“!

Next stop: 5 days of pure wilderness!

For tourism boards and brands, I develop content that visually tells the story of Cusco, the Inca region, and travel stories from the Andes. Information about productions and collaborations can be found on the page for collaboration.