First Evening in Cusco

After drinking 3-4 cups of Coca Tea and taking a nap, we woke up to still some altitude  side effects, but we go dressed for the rain and went out walking.  We walked to the Plaza de Armas and around that area a little to find a place to have something lite for dinner.  I bought my first souvenir (a baby Alpaca neck scarf) since I needed it for the chilly temperatures that go along with the rain at this high altitude.  Tomorrow morning we'll do a city tour and then go exploring Cusco on our own.

The Cathedral as we saw it tonight

The inside of an old Church building that is now a store

This was the facade which I thought was part of the church, but was a store

The Long & Winding Road

We are now in Cuzco, Peru.  We found the hard way to get here. Our flight was delayed an hour and 1/2 from Atlanta and that meant that we missed our flight from Miami to Lima. Lucky enough there was another one two hours later, but that put us in Lima at 12:30am.   Our transport to our Hotel was rearranged as we scrambled to find WiFi at Miami International. American Airlines had an old plane to Lima with no usable water and little food.  Great!  Two broken planes from American and no money to fix them.  We arrived at our Hotel to finally get to sleep around 2AM, but we needed to be back at the airport at our 10am flight to Cusco.  Overnight in Lima and when we return Christmas Eve, we are staying in a sweet little hotel called the Basadre Suites.  Their link is  Basadre Suites Hotel in Lima   We'll write more about that later when we're back in Lima.
We are now in the Andes Mountains (Cusco) at 9000 foot elevation  ( 3326 meters ) feeling winded and tired. A litttle coca tea and off for a nap to acclimate. It is 3pm, but feels like 3am.  Our heads hurt and the walk from the taxi up to the hotel felt like climbing Everest!  We are not that old...it's the air, it's the air.....

The view from the window as we begin our descent into Cusco

Cusco view from the plane

Off to Peru

Tomorrow (December 14th) we are off to Peru for our first 'real' vacation in over a year.  We're excited about it and looking forward to seeing a place we've always talked about going but never made it to.  We'll be visiting an old, old buddy of Beth's from when she was a student at DeKalb College when we're in Lima.  We'll also be visiting Cusco/Machu Picchu and Arequipa/Colca Canyon.