Cusco

“Cousco is magical”, “Energies in Cusco are just something different”, “You can spend a month in Cusco and you’ll still never get bored”. These are just some of the things I heard about Cusco before I arrived. Needless to say that after so many praises my expectations were high.

I didn’t feel the magic, I didn’t see that much difference, but Cusco is indeed a very good place. The mountains around the city, the colourful neighbourhoods on the hills, the colonial buildings of the centre are all pretty nice and the main square is also beautiful.

Writing these lines I was concentrating really hard not to let my view get spoiled by my anger that I felt on the first day. My very first moment from Cusco was when one of the employees of the bus company was hitting my seat in an attempt to wake me up. “We arrived” - He said in spanish. Yeah, thanks. Like there wouldn’t be any other way to wake someone up. And it’s not like I was the last one. There were other people still packing their stuff.

After this I started my walk to the centre. It took me around an hour to walk to the centre where my hostel was. I quickly checked in and continued my walk. I went straight up to one of the Inka ruins, to the Saqsaywaman, that is next to the city. This is where I got annoyed again. 70 Soles to check out some Rocks… Okay. It is less than 20 Euros, but compared to Chan Chan or Moche where the entrance fee was only 10 Soles. This price felt like a scam.

Anyway it was nice, but this is where my annoyance turned into anger, when I read about the history of these ruins. Turned out that the Spanish settlers destroyed the whole Inka city. They stole all the rocks that were not too big for them to move and they used it as a material for their own buildings. I just couldn’t enjoy the view of the historical centre of Cusco knowing that something special, something extraordinary was destroyed for those rather simple buildings that you can see in thousands of other places throughout South America.

In the next few days I took it slow. I relaxed but I also took a day trip to the popular Rainbow Mountain and of Course to Machu Picchu.