cusco: belly button of the universe
post by scott
Thank god we found a cheap flight! Although we had to get up at 3.30am to catch it this morning we are here and settled in already, whereas otherwise we would just be getting on the bus now for a more expensive 21 hour marathon through windy hills. The other bonus was the amazing view of the snowcapped Andes which we happened to be on the right side of the plane to see!
Cusco is a lovely bustling city of 500,000 ppl which sits at about 3,400m above sea level. Apparently that is high enough to get some symptoms of altitude sickness but we are going ok so far. The extreme fatigue is more likely related to the lack of sleep last night and the occasional feeling of shortness of breath is most probably just psychological. Just to be on the safe side though we nailed a few cups of coca leaf tea with lunch today– apparently a remedy for pretty much everything from headache and gastro to cerebral oedema.
Peru is known for food. So far we have tried a few of their
specialties. Here’s the wrap:
1) Anticuchos de Corazon (Beef Heart Skewers): Tastes like steak. Didn’t get any
valves..
2) Pisco Sour: Delicious mix of pisco and lime juice with frothy egg white on top
3) Coca Leaf Tea: Not bad considering its just water and leaves.
4) Alpaca Meat: Delicious red meat like kangaroo. Shame they are so cute.
5) Guinea Pig: Saving this for a post-trek treat
6) Ceviche with "secret sauce" (check the menu!)
Cusco is a lovely bustling city of 500,000 ppl which sits at about 3,400m above sea level. Apparently that is high enough to get some symptoms of altitude sickness but we are going ok so far. The extreme fatigue is more likely related to the lack of sleep last night and the occasional feeling of shortness of breath is most probably just psychological. Just to be on the safe side though we nailed a few cups of coca leaf tea with lunch today– apparently a remedy for pretty much everything from headache and gastro to cerebral oedema.
Peru is known for food. So far we have tried a few of their
specialties. Here’s the wrap:
1) Anticuchos de Corazon (Beef Heart Skewers): Tastes like steak. Didn’t get any
valves..
2) Pisco Sour: Delicious mix of pisco and lime juice with frothy egg white on top
3) Coca Leaf Tea: Not bad considering its just water and leaves.
4) Alpaca Meat: Delicious red meat like kangaroo. Shame they are so cute.
5) Guinea Pig: Saving this for a post-trek treat
6) Ceviche with "secret sauce" (check the menu!)
..
We spent four days in Cusco acclimatising, organising our trek and generally just chilling out. You can see why it’s such a tourist hotspot – the center of town is a beautifully well maintained square with old stone buildings everywhere, cobbled streets and cute old ladies walking around with alpacas for tourists to photograph! On our last night here we visited the local planetarium and learned loads of interesting facts about the history of Cusco and Peru:
- Cusco was considered by Incas to be the “belly button of the universe”, where the heavens, underworld and our world intersect. It's a pretty important place. Machu Pichhu on the other hand was mostly used by the Incas as a summer getaway/ spiritual retreat, the most important city has always been Cusco.
- Incas apparently cultivated 60% of all modern foods, particularly cereals. In fact all potatoes can be genetically traced back here, and Peru has 6,000 different varieties of potato.
- The government in Peru very recently banned Monsanto (GM food giants) from coming in and allowing cross pollination of GM crops with Perus organic crops. Peru is home to beautiful multi-coloured species of corn -- the first-ever-original corn crops, it would be horrendous to lose this diversity due to cross pollination with Monsantos 'single seeding' crops. The ban is currently for 10 years, but locals are very passionately against having GM seeds in the country at all. Go Peru!!!
The clouds parted for long enough to get a peek at the sky too, including the “dark constellation” in the Milky Way which the Incas think looks like a Llama, and interestingly Indigenous Australians consider to be the Emu!
- Cusco was considered by Incas to be the “belly button of the universe”, where the heavens, underworld and our world intersect. It's a pretty important place. Machu Pichhu on the other hand was mostly used by the Incas as a summer getaway/ spiritual retreat, the most important city has always been Cusco.
- Incas apparently cultivated 60% of all modern foods, particularly cereals. In fact all potatoes can be genetically traced back here, and Peru has 6,000 different varieties of potato.
- The government in Peru very recently banned Monsanto (GM food giants) from coming in and allowing cross pollination of GM crops with Perus organic crops. Peru is home to beautiful multi-coloured species of corn -- the first-ever-original corn crops, it would be horrendous to lose this diversity due to cross pollination with Monsantos 'single seeding' crops. The ban is currently for 10 years, but locals are very passionately against having GM seeds in the country at all. Go Peru!!!
The clouds parted for long enough to get a peek at the sky too, including the “dark constellation” in the Milky Way which the Incas think looks like a Llama, and interestingly Indigenous Australians consider to be the Emu!