Tag Archives: walls

Machu Picchu

September 8, 2018

We debated about whether to visit Machu Picchu or not.  Dogs definitely are not allowed, either on the Inca trail or at the site, so that meant we needed to get back to the truck within the day and thus take the train to the site, which would be an expensive ride.  They have now also changed the entrance rules: you buy a ticket for either the morning or the afternoon, and you are limited to 4 hours for your visit.  We had read that the site would be crowded, and we were worried about getting there and being disappointed.  In the end, we decided that we would likely never have a better opportunity to visit Machu Picchu, and that we would regret it if we didn’t go.

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Cusco

August 29, 2018 – September 4, 2018

Legend has it that the sun god, Inti, looked down on the world in the 12th century and decided that the people needed a leader.  He created the first Inca (king), Manco Capac and his sister-wife Mama Occlo.  The pair emerged from Isla del Sol in Lake Titicaca.  Inti gave Manco Capac a golden rod and told the pair to settle where Manco Capac was able to plunge the rod completely into the earth.  This spot would become the navel of the earth (qosq’o in the Quechua language).  And that is how Cusco got it’s name.  The city has been inhabited ever since, making it the oldest continuously inhabited city in South America.  It was the centre of the vast Inca empire and it was, and still is, the centre of Inca culture.

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