Cusco, Perú

Matt began his day as usual with a morning run.  He ran up to the lighthouse. I was a bit bummed that I didn’t get to see it up close like he did, but glad he took the photo. 
Our day together began with a taxi ride back to the airport. The Proctors had an earlier flight than us, so we planned just to meet them at the hotel in Cusco. We had a small airport breakfast of empanadas then boarded our flight.  Sadly, after we were all on board and ready to go, they discovered an issue with the breaking system.  We waited on the plane for an hour for them to fix it before they just gave up and deboarded the plane. Ugh. So we had to wait 2 more hours in the airport before flying out. Luckily we had nothing other than exploring the city for plans today.  We finally made it to our hotel in Cusco about 4pm. We felt the altitude right away walking the stairs in the airport. It was great seeing the city on our drive to the hotel. What a cool city it is! It so cool all built up on the hills with a cathedral every block or two.  Very beautiful. Our hotel which was near a larger plaza also had so much charm with a courtyard in the middle. However, it also had stairs and stairs for us to climb to our room on the third floor. Felt the altitude for sure! 
This stairway to our rooms totally made me think of something Escher would paint


After getting all checked in, checking out our unique room and the Proctor’s room, we headed out to explore the city.  


We visited the Cusco Cathedral. It was pretty amazing. They was an ancient silver alter and they had this huge painting of the last supper-featuring a roasted guinea pig of course. The town was for sure getting ready to celebrate the new year. This New Year’s lucky color in Peru is gold/ yellow, so everything was decorated with yellow balloons and streamers and really anything yellow,  


Thanks to a suggestion from Miranda we stopped by a chocolate shop and got some yummy Pruivan chocolate.  

The plazas and streets just got prettier as the night went on. 
We stopped into a restaurant for dinner so Ann-Marie and Dave could have their traditional Peruvian food. None of us were brave enough to try the cuy yet (that’s roasted guinea pig, a Peruvian specialty). Matt did get another dish of ceviche though.  Ann-Marie was not so sure about it. Her face for sure emulates my feelings about it.  



After dinner we walked around some more and then called it an early evening because we had to rearrange our luggage and we were set to have another early morning. For our next adventure (2 days) we were only allowed to have backpacks.  We needed to leave all the rest of our baggage in the hotel storage room.  

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