Up in the Andes

Approaching Cusco.

We were still travelling tired, with less than four hours of sleep.

It was about 2:30 or so by the time we got to bed. I had set an alarm for 6: DW and the girls shared one room; I had one to myself but in fairness, we didn't want to take the risk that I might snore and keep others awake.

My alarm went off but I slept through it, waking up on my own at 6:39. We were supposed to leave for the airport at 7, but because we were so close and our flight wasn't departing until 10, we decided that 8 was fine. And it was.

We flew the one-hour flight from Lima to Cusco, the Inca capital city. We're planning to spend a couple of days here but because it's at an elevation of about 3,500 metres above sea level, we decided to acclimatize slowly, and so hired a driver, who is employed by our hotel, to take us to Ollantaytambo, another historic Inca town about two hours from Cusco and at only 2,700 or so metres high.

Our boutique hotel, Parwa Guest House, is run by fabulous owners who are very helpful. Our room is spacious for the four of us and our windows look out onto an archeological site that we haven't visited at the time of writing this post but will have visited, and I'll share images of this site for Wordless Wednesday, tomorrow.

I have to say that Ollantaytambo is beautiful, surrounded by steep mountains of the Andes and surrounded by history. So far, none of us seems affected by altitude sickness, but we're taking preventative medicine and sucking on cacao candies, which relieve effects as well.

We'll already have been to Machu Picchu by the time this post has been published, so I'll have more to share in the future.

Stay tuned.