Tumbes
After one day in Tumbes at sea level, we were up in the Andes again. Cusco is located at 3,400 m (11,152 ft) which is higher than Quito. I was back to wearing a sweater.
Cusco was the capital city of the great Incan Empire. The Incas were brilliant engineers. They managed to build roads and houses from rocks fitted with such precision that they did not need mortar. The rocks were cut in irregular shapes, yet you cannot insert a razor blade into these seams. Add to this the fact that the Incas did not know the wheel and did not have horses either. Most of the transportation was done by foot using llamas to carry goods from one part of the huge empire to another.
When the Spaniards conquered Cusco in 1533, they destroyed Inca structures and build their own on the old foundations.
To see Inca ruins, we bought tourist cards with admission to several sites and separate tickets to Machu Picchu.
We went to Pisac, a village in the Sacred Valley not far from Cusco, and to another Inca site, Tambomachay. In Incan times, it was a sacred site used for worship of the water deity and had magnificent channels, aqueducts, and waterfalls.
We also visited on the same day Puka Pukara, an Incan military fort, and the fortified complex Sacsayhuamán.
We walked from Tambomachay to Cusco 1.5 hours just for fun of it and enjoyed the walk. A girl, probably no more than 3 years old, wandered completely by herself on the road. She stopped us and begged for money. We gave her some coins and took a photo with her.
Child begging in Cusco was a serious issue. We got surrounded by children as soon as we left the hotel. Some kids were selling something, others simply begged. They followed us and other foreigners everywhere. Their pestering was annoying and tiresome. Ignoring them did not work. One girl was especially irritating. She would walk alongside or in front of us and keep saying over and over again in a singsong voice “Will you buy my puppets? Puppets please?” Talking to her only encouraged the girl to redouble her efforts. Giving her money was not a solution either. The girl was at her ‘workplace’ by our hotel door every evening. I knew that I should not be angry with her. She was forced to do that. Still, this left an unpleasant aftertaste of our stay in Cusco.