Arrival in Cuzco
Today we arrived in Cuzco and a man from our hostel [El Mirador del Inca] picked us up at the bus stop and helped us with our bags. We ended up staying in a room that was $25/night. And we had our own bathroom. Hooray! We had reserved the room for 5 nights. It was really spacious, had two beds, had been renovated so that the bathroom was inside, and had original hard wood floors... the kind that are so old that they're really soft.
We decided to go ahead and arrange plans for horseback riding the next morning to see a couple of archeological sites.
We ate a mid-afternoon lunch at a place I believe was named Los Tomines. We wandered around the city, found the Plaza de Armas [main square], and went back to the hotel. We took a naps. Then we unpacked some stuff and went back out. We had a kinda fancy dinner on plaza -- all the balconies facing the plaza are owned by different restaurants. We got some nice seats on one of the balconies and ate stuffed pasta and al paca. The restaurant was literally named Los Balcones. I had two daiquiris, and Marcelo had two Russians [one white, one black]. Because the restaurant had both a menu and a buffet, Marcelo and I were the last patrons to leave. Most people got the buffet, ate like pigs, and left. But we weren't interested in going to the clubs and bars so we had a nice long dinner with good service.
On the way back to the hostel we decided to check out a place a block or so away. It's called Km 0; the music was really good. It was kinda getting late so we had one drink and left. In all honesty, it really wasn't that late but after being on a bus for 22 hours and not being able to sleep well, bed sounded like a good idea.
And of course, we expected that I would have really bad altitude sickness. So we thought ahead and bought these pills that are supposed to take care of both the headache and the stomach ache. Well. They did their job so well that I wasn't in any pain at all... I was just a little out of breath. Therefore, we did all the things you AREN'T supposed to do when you have altitude sickness: eat large meals, drink alcohol, and walk a lot.
I wasn't feeling very well by the time I actually got to my bed and tried to sleep. I was up most of the night with a headache and feeling horrible. I didn't even have enough alcohol to be drunk [especially with the long walk back to the hostel neighborhood] but I felt like I was hungover all night long.
We decided to go ahead and arrange plans for horseback riding the next morning to see a couple of archeological sites.
We ate a mid-afternoon lunch at a place I believe was named Los Tomines. We wandered around the city, found the Plaza de Armas [main square], and went back to the hotel. We took a naps. Then we unpacked some stuff and went back out. We had a kinda fancy dinner on plaza -- all the balconies facing the plaza are owned by different restaurants. We got some nice seats on one of the balconies and ate stuffed pasta and al paca. The restaurant was literally named Los Balcones. I had two daiquiris, and Marcelo had two Russians [one white, one black]. Because the restaurant had both a menu and a buffet, Marcelo and I were the last patrons to leave. Most people got the buffet, ate like pigs, and left. But we weren't interested in going to the clubs and bars so we had a nice long dinner with good service.
On the way back to the hostel we decided to check out a place a block or so away. It's called Km 0; the music was really good. It was kinda getting late so we had one drink and left. In all honesty, it really wasn't that late but after being on a bus for 22 hours and not being able to sleep well, bed sounded like a good idea.
And of course, we expected that I would have really bad altitude sickness. So we thought ahead and bought these pills that are supposed to take care of both the headache and the stomach ache. Well. They did their job so well that I wasn't in any pain at all... I was just a little out of breath. Therefore, we did all the things you AREN'T supposed to do when you have altitude sickness: eat large meals, drink alcohol, and walk a lot.
I wasn't feeling very well by the time I actually got to my bed and tried to sleep. I was up most of the night with a headache and feeling horrible. I didn't even have enough alcohol to be drunk [especially with the long walk back to the hostel neighborhood] but I felt like I was hungover all night long.