Rodney & Sheryl's Travels: 1/14-16

Our ship docked at the port in Calleo, Peru. From there, we were transferred to the airport for our flight to Cusco, located at an elevation of 11,152 feet above sea level. Needless to say, the altitude change took some getting used to. They encourage you to drink the Coca tea (yes, made from Coca, aka cocaine, leaves, though not strong enough to hurt anyone) and lots of water to help avoid altitude sickness. We took their advice and seemed to deal with it just fine, though others on our tour were not so lucky. Rodney did have some trouble sleeping and catching his breath at night, but otherwise it didn't really bother us.

Our hotel was a 5-star hotel located in Cusco named the Hotel Monasterio and it was absolutely gorgeous! It's an old monastery now remodeled into a hotel. The bed alone was half the size of our entire room on the ship! We had breakfast and lunch in the hotel restaurant and it was delicious. Dinner the first night was in a restaurant near the hotel called the Map Cafe. We were served multiple courses, but the main course was lamb medallions and it was absolutely the best lamb I have ever eaten. Part of the dessert was a liquor served in a glass that was actually edible - they broke it on the plate after it was served. It was some sort of frozen candy.

We visited some Incan ruins called Saqsaywaman while in Cusco. The area wasn't nearly as big as Machu Picchu, but still very interesting. As you can see from the photos, some of the boulders they used were much larger than in Machu Picchu. Evidently, the rock quarry they came from was over 5 miles away. Amazing to think of how they were able to move those big rocks and fit them together the way they did!