Eight miles high*

Well not quite, just 3,310 metres above sea level to be precise and when we got off the plane didn’t we know it? We felt the first effects of breathlessness quite quickly and the other effects of altitude appeared within the next hour or so: light-headedness, nausea, tingling hands and headache. We tried the local ‘remedy’ of coca leaf tea (quite legal in Peru) which helped a bit, we also had some oxygen but the best was the Acetazolamide, prescribed by our GP. (Thank you Seamus)
The rain we experienced in Tambopata has moved south and arrived in Cusco on our first afternoon which, added to the effects of the altitude, made us feel pretty miserable. We had a not very strenuous stroll around the city as even a few steps makes us out of breath at this altitude. Chris and most of the people in the group find it an attractive city but Gregg thinks it is a bit dour and harsh – maybe he’ll like it more if the sun comes out.

Cusco is the ancient Inca capital and was founded about 1100CE but is now a bustling commercial and tourist centre with a population of about 325,000, most of whom are Quecha. The city is stuffed full of Spanish colonial churches, convents, monasteries, palaces and genuine** ethnic artefact knick-knack stalls but in the centre there are extensive pre-Columbian ruins. Perhaps ‘ruins’ is the wrong word as they are the remains of Inca walls with the perfect stonework intact which now serves as the foundations for more modern dwellings. Even Gregg admits that the Inca stonework is phenomenal with each stone being perfectly dressed to fit against its neighbours without need for any bonding material such as cement. Even the hotel we are staying in has Inca stonework up to a height of about 4metres. All of the stonework is tapered upwards so that every wall has a perfect line of inclination towards the centre, from the bottom to the top. On part of our stroll we came upon the famous twelve-angled stone.

Even we cut out the alcohol***because of the altitude it adds to the dehydration and possible cerebral oedema.
* a song written by Gene Clark, Jim McGuinn and David Crosby and first released as a single by the Byrds in March 1966
** genuine, my arse
*** OK not completely