Travel Post: Sacred Valley in Peru
5:30 PM
This blog is apart of my Peru travel post series. Read my previous post about the Amazon rainforest here!
Day 4 - Cuzco / Sacred Valley
After our stay in the Amazon was over, we flew out of Puerto Maldonado to meet our friends in Cuzco. We decided not to stay too long in Cuzco due to the altitude.
For those of you who do not know,
some parts of Peru is at a higher elevation than what most Americans are
used to. The air is thinner at a higher altitude, so it can be very
hard to adjust the first few days. Altitude sickness - which I
experienced - is no joke! I was lightheaded, and experienced dizziness,
nausea, headaches, and was out of breath whenever I took some steps or
climbed a few stairs. It was terrible, but at least I did not vomit! (I
actually asked my doctor to prescribe me Diamox prior to the trip, which supposedly helps with the altitude sickness.)
Another way to ease altitude sickness is to drink coca tea.
Coca leaves are sold virtually everywhere in Peru. It's very easy to
make - just brew hot water and dump a bunch of coca leaves in it. It
numbs your body so the nausea doesn't feel as crappy. Needless to say, I
chugged it whenever I was able to.
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| Coca tea |
We stayed in Ollantaytambo, a town in Sacred Valley, for the first night we were there. Oh, and we also tried cuy - aka guinea pig!
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| look how creepy it is! you can see the guinea pig's last moments of excruciating pain by the way it is wincing...ugh. You can even see the teeth. |
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We rented a van for the next day and drove around looking at popular Sacred Valley spots:
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| View from the Ollantaytambo ruins |
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| Another view from Ollantaytambo ruins |
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| Pisac ruins |
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| Maras salt flats |
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| Inca ruins of Moray |
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| My friend Glen looking at chess sets |
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| Copyright infringement is not a huge deal in Peru |
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| Pisac market |
Overall, it was very interesting to go around and look at Inca ruins. We purchased a boleto turistico for the day, which allowed us to visit the ancient ruin sites.
We also got to eat at a restaurant, El_Huacatay, that turned out to me one of my favorite meals in Peru. By the way, food in Peru is cheap! Especially compared to America, where Pervuvian food is not as good and far more expensive.
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| Our spread |
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| Lomo saltado..do you get the sense that we really enjoyed our lomo saltado there? |
*We have my friend to thank for these beautiful pictures throughout the next couple of posts. A few of these pictures were taken on my GoPro, but most pictures were taken by my friend, Alex Botao Wong.
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