Cuzco, Peru

July 1998

Trip Rating 4.5/5

If you want to go to Machu Picchu, you have to go to Cuzco.    This is not entirely bad though.    Cuzco has many interesting things to see.    There are ruins throughout the city, and above the city are the famous ruins of Sacsayhuaman ("sexy woman" is how it is pronounced, and the locals love to tell the Gringos that!) where the Inca successfully defended their empire (for a little while) from the Spanish.  Cuzco has good shopping and is overall a very nice place to be.    I didn't find that I had any effects from the altitude.    The only thing wrong with my trip to Cuzco was that I am pretty sure that I got food poisoning there.    It caught up with me in Puno.   

On the bottom of this arch is Inca stonemenship, notice above how the Spanish covered it over with plaster.

Kim and Jere at Sacsayhuaman, in front of the largest hand cut stone in the Inca empire.

A native in Cuzco with her baby and her llama.

Spanish stonemenship.   Compare this "superior technology" to the Incan work below.  The Spanish used mortar, but the Inca fit their pieces so tightly that no mortar was needed.   The Incan work is also stronger and holds up to the frequent earthquakes of Cuzco.

The windows of the structures are in a trapezoidal shape for strength against earthquakes.

Jere's hand by the smallest stone in the Inca Empire!

people have visited virtual Cuzco.

This page last updated on 02/19/99.