After a late breakfast in our guesthouse we wanted to take a closer look at the city of Cusco. Cusco is a city in southeastern Peru near the Urubamba Valley of the Andes mountain range. It is the capital of the Cusco Region and of the Cusco Province. The city is the seventh most populous in Peru and had a population of 430.000. The city was the capital of the Inca Empire from the 13th century until the 16th-century Spanish conquest. In 1983, Cusco was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO with the title “City of Cuzco”. It has become a major tourist destination, hosting nearly 2 million visitors a year.
First we wanted to get the tickets for Machu Picchu today. We had actually tried to buy the tickets in advance on the Internet via the official website of the “Ministerio de Cultura“, but unfortunately the payment did not work here several times. We were able to read in other reports and blogs that there are often problems on the website when paying for tickets for Machu Picchu, especially with foreign credit cards. Very annoying. So we had no choice but to buy the tickets directly from the Ministry of Culture in Cusco.
Since it is off-season, there were still enough regular tickets, but unfortunately not for the Huayna Picchu, which we would have liked to have seen. A maximum of 2,500 people a day are allowed to go to Machu Picchu, but only 400 to Huayna Picchu. Huayna Picchu is one of the two peaks between which lie the incarnations of Machu Picchu. The summit is known for the classic postcard motif of these ruins, on which it rises in the background.
When we had the tickets for Machu Picchu in our pocket, we walked a little through Cusco.
Cusco’s inca town’s art
Cusco is considered by many to be the starting point for the tours to Machu Picchu and the Inca Trail. The city has about 350,000 inhabitants, is located at 3,416 meters altitude and belongs to the UNESCO World Heritage Site. We also found the old town really beautiful. This is also completely opposite to other districts or to our South American cities visited so far. The small streets with their cobblestones, the red brick roofs, the many small cafés and churches everywhere – you could also be somewhere in Tuscany or in southern Spain.
The Plaza de Armas & the Old Town
The Plaza de Armas is the centre piece of the centre, with a cathedral and a Jesuit church. The streets are made of cobblestones and there are many arcades and wooden balconies in Spanish style. But you can also look at a lot of things in the city.
The market hall “San Pedro Mercado”
After a while we strolled through the old town and watched the hustle and bustle for an hour in the main square, we went to the San Pedro Mercado – a large market hall. There’s everything there – from fruit & vegetables to clothes to fish & meat. We also spent a while there, because some market stalls were really quite interesting. Sometimes you don’t want to know what they’re selling there 🙂
Starbucks Global Icon City Mug from Cusco
We are collecting the Starbucks Mugs from the cities and islands we visit on our travels. Unfortunately, not every city that has a Starbucks store with an own mug. But if the city has an own mug we like to collect them as a souvenir. We only collect city mugs from the "Global Icon Series", which was released in 2008. You can see our complete collection here: Starbucks - Our collection of Mugs from the Global Icon Series
Cusco has several Starbucks stores and also has its own cup 🙂
Starbucks Global Icon City Mug from Cusco
All travelogues from Peru
Peru was one of the countries which was set from the beginning in the planning our world trip 🙂 We had already seen so many pictures of the Inca city Machu Picchu that we definitely wanted to see it. And our route through Peru we could also connect perfectly with Bolivia and Ecuador.
Day
»