Day 7 : Historical sight seeing Sacsayhuaman and Qorikancha.
After 5 days of hike routine wasn't able to sleep late in the morning. Body clock woke us up at 9:00 AM itself. In morning we were just spending time within hostel by checking mails and plan for next 3 days. Booked tickets for tonight travel to Puno and got ready for the city historical places visit.
After having lunch we checked for the availability of city tour but it was too late so we visited Sacsayhuaman and Qorikancha by our self. After historical visits in the evening we were walking around Plaza De Armas square. We had Tamales from street shop. We planned to relax our body for the past 5 days hard work through Peruvian massage.
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| Sacsayhuaman - Big Stones |
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| Sacsayhuaman - Zig Zag Walls |
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| Qorikancha - Three Windows in one line |
In today's dinner we tasted purple corn juice. After dinner we reached bus terminal at 9:00 PM by cab. During our cab drive was saw the Statue of Inca Leader Pachacuti. After getting our tickets we waited till 10:15 PM for our bus. This is a semi sleeper seat bus and was comfortable to sleep.
Day 8 : Lake Titicaca and Floating Islands
Bus reached Puno at 5:30 AM. We were picked by our travel guide (Jumbo travels) and he dropped us in their travel office. After refreshing we started in van at 6:45 AM. We reached the port at 8:00 AM for boat to the floating island. It was 2 hours of slow boat ride. In floating island we had demo of how these islands are made and life style of people in this island. We were told it takes at least 1 year to make an Island of size shown in the below picture. We also had a ride for 10 Sols in the so called their traditional boat.
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| Floating Island |
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| Grass on which Island Floats |
After this our boat took 2 hour ride to Tequila island. We heard people in this island are good weavers. We had good fresh trout dish as lunch. Lunch was on the top of island outside facing the lake which was a good lunch with great view. After lunch we had guide tour about the life style and dress code of the people in this island. After this we had 30 minutes walk to the other harbor for the return boat to Puno. Return journey was 2 hours and 30 minutes of bumpy water and rainy ride.
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| View from Tequila island |
We were dropped in travel office. As it was raining we weren't able to go out so we stayed watching TV by laying in the couch till 8:00 PM. After we had dinner and reached bus terminal for the return journey to Cusco. Our return bus was at 10:00 PM from Puno.
Day 9: Pisac Monument and Market, Souvenirs, Street Food and 2014 New Year Eve
We reached Cusco by 5:00 PM. After reaching hostel I decided to go for walk. While walking noticed some street food carts are already open for breakfast. I tasted a hot drink quinoa gruel and some cake or bread.
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| Breakfast - quinoa gruel |
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| Breakfast - Egg and Potatoes |
Today our plan was to visit only the Pisac village and market. We took local bus from Cusco and reached Pisac market place. From there to go up we took the tour cabs which were quite expensive. After visiting the ruins we came down and walked through the market looking for some souvenirs. We purchased alpaca sweaters after some bargaining. We started from Pisac at 4:00 PM and reached Cusco by 5:00 PM. While return we walked through the San Pedro mercado where we noticed local people were getting ready for the New Year Eve celebration. Streets were crowded with street vendors selling crackers, vegetables, meat, sweat, new year masks, yellow caps, yellow under wears, yellow ties, yellow new year glassed etc.
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| Pisac |
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| Fried Cuy |
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| New Year Eve Street Shop |
After reaching hostel at 6:30 PM we thought for moment to rest for few hours and get ready for eve. We slept till 9:30 PM after we which we packed our bags for tomorrow's early morning departure from Cusco. We reached Plaza De Armas square at 11:45 PM and amazed to see huge crowd in the square. People were firing their own crackers and crazies were throwing the lighted crackers between crowds and was having wild fun.
Clock ticked for 2014 and fire work started and lasted for 20 minutes. Cusco local people had custom of walking around the square in counter clockwise. Belief is Seven rounds of the Plaza de Armas brings good luck for the new year. Two other typical new years traditions in Peru are wearing yellow underwear and eating 12 grapes right before midnight. Both bring good luck.
I was amazed to see immediately after an hour of new year celebration, Cusco metropolitan workers started cleaning the streets and by morning they made sure that place doesn't have much trace of such huge late night celebration.
There are lot of street food through out the new year night where you can enjoy burgers and rolls. After having some food we reached our hostel at 3:00 AM and decided to have 2 hours of nap before we start to Cusco airport.
Our alarms rang at 5:00 AM and we packed our self to airport after a fantastic trip. We reached airport at 6:30 AM. We checked in waited for our 8:15 AM flight to Lima. We heard from announcement there could be possible delay to low visibility caused by New Year Eve fire work. Luckily all our return flights were on time and we reached home safe.
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