Cusco at Night

Cusco is a beautiful city even at night, which is all I have seen it by so far. Jessica, Jorge Jr., Jorge Sr. and I walked around the city tonight. The Plaza de Armas in the center of town looks very European. It has two cathedrals, many shops with beautiful balconies built on top on Incan stone walls and a wonderful fountain in the center. The city is very much alive at night. This seems true of many foreign cities compared with those in the USA. I´m not sure why, but maybe it has something to do with the fact that most people don´t own or drive there own cars and therefore must walk to do errands and socialize after work.

Today we visited the ruins of Sillustani with many interesting funeral towers of immense smoothly carved stone blocks. We stopped at Raqchi which was a large and impressive townsite. Raqchi has some of the tallest remaining ruins, three stories high with adobe walls on top of stone foundations. Our final stop before Cusco was at Picquillacta ruins an even larger administrative complex of huge dimensions, but most of what you could see where stone walls from one to two stories in high in varying conditions.

I am feeling much better today and was able to enjoy the long but interesting car trip which brought us through the altiplano and over the highest mountain pass I have ever crossed: 4330m or 14,200 ft. Basically, it was like driving to the top of Mt. Rainier! Jessica was driving and said the car started lacking power as we reached the top.

I´m not sure that I´ll be able to post many pictures while travelling, but definitely will find a means of sharing them with you afterwards either in person or via a photo website.