My First Weekend in Cusco

Saturday morning I slept in until 11, had an hour before lunch to shower and get dressed and stuff.  After lunch, my roommates (Audrey and Katie) and another volunteer in the house named Holly and I hiked up to Saqsaywaman, also spelled “Sacsayhuaman”. Saqsaywaman is an old Inca fort north of Cusco, constructed from huge stones. Only 20% is still there today because it was used as a quarry by the Spanish to build houses in Cusco. There seems to be some debate over what “Saqsaywaman” means. Some sources say “satisfied falcon” others say “city of stone”.  Regardless of the translation, it is pronounced “sexy woman”. There are endless jokes about this, but the funniest part is probably how, while Audrey, Katie, Holly and I were hiking up, taxi drivers would slowly drive by us yelling “Sexy woman?! Yes?”.  We giggled while we waved them on.

 

The hike up was exhausting, but it was worth it. The view of the city is breathtaking. The stones are huge. The whole area is just beautiful. We had a lot of fun exploring the ruins and getting our picture taken with random people. And crashing tour groups (Holly!). 

 

After Saqsaywaman, we hiked over to the giant white Jesus that is visible from the house. He’s quite huge.

 

On the hike back down to the city, there were two random stray llamas (possibly alpacas, I can’t quite grasp the difference) going up. They had ropes on, so we guessed that they had escaped from the people in traditional garb that pose for pictures with llamas or alpacas for money. We caught them and took pictures with them until their owners came running up the hill. Twas quite fun.

 

After returning the creatures we hiked down to the city and went out for cake. For S/8 I had a huge piece of chocolate cake and a tall glass of strawberry juice that was SO good. Definitely going back there. S/8 is only like $2.50. I love Peru.

 

Sunday I slept in again, getting up in time to eat lunch. Most of the others went down to the main plaza, La Plaza de Armas to have a huge water fight against the locals. They came back soaked, but happy for the most part.  I’m not that sad that I missed out. One epic battle is enough for me.

 

We had a pretty lazy afternoon just hanging out in the living room/dining room area reading, mending pants, blogging, meeting the new people, etc.

 

After supper we watched the Oscars – with Spanish translation. And blogged and shared pictures and stuff.

 

You can see my pictures from this weekend at  http://picasaweb.google.com/elliemae27.