Cancelled flight = bonus adventure, Good times in Cusco

Mexico City was great! Everything happens for a reason and turns out our flight trouble was worth it! We had about 24 hours to spend in Mexico City so we bought passes for a open roof double decker tourist bus that you can get off and on all day. $20 well spent! We saw quite a bit of an extremely large city (22 million people compared to SF´s 800 thousand) in a short amount of time. Here are some of the highlights.

• The Art Deco and Art Nuveau architecture of the Bellas Artes building. I don´t know much about architecture but I know that was absolutely amazing!
  
  
• El Zocalo- The main square which is just enormous with a giant flagpole and giant Mexican flag in the middle. It is surrounded by the presidential palace which is full of incredible Diego Rivera murals depicting the history of Mexico, old pretty government buildings, and a giant cathedral (conveniently located nearly on top of Aztec ruins- those Spanish colonizers were very thoughtful that way).

The presidential palace in el Zocalo.

• A tour of the bell tower at the cathedral. We got to see the giant bells (some weighing in excess of 2 tons), walk on the mini-domes that make up the cathedral´s roof, and see spectacular views of the city.



On top of the cathedral.


• The public art. It´s everywhere and it is wonderful. There is a long park (maybe a mile?) where every bench is also a piece of art. Some look like alligators, some like couches, some abstract, and all different from the next.


• Watching breakdancers including a mini-Michael Jackson impersonator. Next to the breakdancers was a woman offering traditional soul cleansings by rubbing oils on your neck and burning fragrant leaves all around you.


• Our meals! Lunch was at a taco stall with room for four people to sit inside. The tacos there were little tortillas filled with meat and then fried together into moon shapes. We tried the bean taco, a mole & mystery meat taco, adobo beef tacos and coke from a bottle. Everything was delicious. Total for both of us =$3. We had dinner at a nice restaurant with contemporary takes on traditional Mexican food. Garlic prawn and fried parsley tacos; zucchini flowers stuffed with goat cheese and walnuts, covered in a smooth, sweet chipotle sauce; tortilla soup, and tuna, avocado, and orange ceviche. Delicious!

Taco lunch. Yum!

• (This next one is not a good highlight.) From dinner we had to get back to the hotel, grab our bags (already packed), and go to the airport which was only a 10 minute train ride from the hotel. We had 90 minutes to do this. Easy, right? Wrong. We got bad directions to the metro. Turned out it was a very log walk which turned into a run when it started to rain. It took us almost 30 minutes to get to the metro stop. Then, the metro was super crowded and a trip that had taken us 45 minutes in the morning took us 75 (wet, standing and crowded) minutes. That is when I started to stress out. I know that´s not helpful but I do it anyways. Ugh. We ran from our Metro stop to the hotel. Elevator broken. No stairs anywhere close. Took the service elevator. Then the keycard to our room didn´t work. Aargh! Lucky for us, the story ends well. Even with a 30 minute wait to check in at LAN (no electronic check-in booths and quite possibly the slowest check in process EVER), we made it to our flight in time.
  

We had a red eye from Mexico City to Lima and a connection to Cusco. Someone from our hostel picked us up from the airport and things here are great. I did not pass out on the tarmac from altitude sickness as I had feared. In fact, we´ve had no real altitude problems so far at all. Everyone is SOO nice here. The weather is wonderful when the sun is out and freezing (actually freezing- I´m not exaggerating) when the sun goes down. I´m glad we invested in thermal underwear. I don´t remember it being this cold last time I was here but I´m sure it was. Cusco is as picturesque as I remember. The Plaza de Armas, the main square, is so beautiful. And the Incan architecture is amazing. The city is full of tourists and people selling things to tourists. It seems there is less severe poverty than last time I was here.

The Plaza de Armas.

Today we went on a hiking tour of the Inca structures outside of Cusco. The structures are phenomenal and have survived many earthquakes that more recent buildings have not. We hired a guide, Denis, who told us the history of each place. We put quite a few good miles on our hiking boots today and are ready to start our big trek tomorrow morning.

Jeff and I at Saskaywaman.

Tomorrow, we leave for a 5 day trek through the Andes. We´re really excited. No one else signed up for the tour on the same day as us so we´ll have a private tour. How lucky for us! We´ll check in again after the trek. Happy 4th of July! Also, Happy Dia del Amigo, Peru´s first annual "Friend Day".


XOXO
Sonya