My first days here, take it calm and easy, we are at 3500 m and clearly I have to get used to the altitude. But i am not the only one, we all do. 

 The hostel offers free hot water and coca leaves all day, so, like everybody else, I drink my coca tea . I am doing good. Some people wake up at night short of breath, I just wake up with my heart bouncing… I then hyperventilate for some minutes and everything gets back to normal! The funny thing is, when my heart starts bouncing my dreams adapt and become adventurous and scary ;-)

The hostel is amazing, an old Spanish Colonial building, with a large inner court surrounded by galeries so that one can sit dry while it rains. Two stories high, beneath the restaurant bar and lobby, above the rooms and bathrooms. Very comfortable beds!First day I just stayed calm, did a little walk by myself and felt that I already did too much, so I came back and took a little rest.


 Second day, feeling better, I did the free walking tour together with Dieuwertje, my roommate from Holland. Our guide explained a little the story of Cusco, how it was founded by the first Inca king, Manco Capac, its Puma shape and the symbolic around it, very interesting . 

 We did not go inside buildings, just walk through the old streets, and stop by a tourist thing, inner court where a man all dressed up as a former Inca plays all the traditional instruments, pan flute of course, but also shells and other bony things. In the grass, children play, and for a little money some young girls in traditional clothing will stand on the picture with a baby Alpaca in their arms.

 The next day, feeling really better, I did the City Tour, with a guide. We visited the Cathedral, where I almost become uneasy seeing all the gold and silver, and knowing where this all came from. The Cathedral is Spanish built of course.We visited Qoricancha, a former sacred Inca place with several temples, now a catholic church and convent. The guide very proud showed us all the original Inca walls that still stand despite all the earthquakes, while the Spanish buildings still fell down and had to be rebuilt ;-) 

It is amazing to see these Inca walls, made of polygonal stones so well carved that they fit perfectly together without any mortar! One cannot put a needle!

 Then the bus took us to several ruins, but like always, you start seeing so many that you mix them all and forget what you saw . I remembered Saqsayhuaman though, and decided to go back the next day.

 These ruins are special, They "are" the puma’s head in the plan of Cusco, and were a sacred place. I start my little discovery walk and there comes this man, presenting himself as a guide and shaman, and asking if I want to know the secret spiritual symbols of the stones. Hum. Shaman? who says? but then, maybe it can be interesting! So I agree for a price and we start the tour. So interesting! About the history of the first Incas, their religion, and the symbolic in the stones. I am showed a Alpaca (see the picture) , a puma paw (symbol of healing), and the three “doors”: the stars door, the man door and the underworld door. The man door with symbols of duality, and having on the opposite side of the large plain a hill in the shape of a turtle, the mother earth, Pachamama in Quechua. And much more. 

I don’t know if what he told was all true, but some things I googled afterwards and were confirmed, like the “son of god” who came to preach and who was tall, white skinned, blond with blue eyes! I think the Vikings touched this soil long before Columbus ;-) Cusco is amazing, all this history!