Cusco, the jewel of Peru

Cusco is literally in the heart of Puno and is closer to the Amazon rain forests than to Lima. This is the city that attracts most tourists in a year in Peru. It is the gateway to the rich Incan past and surrounded by a mind blowing set of ruins covering the entire area. A taxi from Cusco airport to the city center should set you back by $3 (10 Soles).

Sacsayhuaman - A walk from Cusco

The ruins of Chichero had a lot to offer

Depending upon what you want to see in Cusco, you have 2 options to pick an overall entrance ticket:

• 3 partial tickets covering different areas - 1 for entrances to musuems and selected sights within Cusco, 1 for ruins close to Cusco and 1 for ruins within sacred valley. Each partial ticket costs $20 (70 Soles) and is valid for 1 or 2 days
• 1 full ticket for everything mentioned above, valid for 10 days and costs $40 (130 Soles). Our recommendation is obviously to go for this

The things to do in Cusco can be split into 4 major segments:

The Ruins of Raqchi

1. South of Cusco: ruins like Tipon, Raqchi and a boring church of andahulliyas. The best way to do this is either as a day tour from cusco or even better in a bus from Puno to Cusco. 3 companies (Turismo Mer, Inca express) offer a bus on the route of sun, covering these key Areas and costs $55 per person for the one way journey. It starts at 7 am and reaches at 5 pm either ways. We did the ride from Puno to Cusco with Turismo Mer and found the entire experience to be quite interesting. They provide lunch, English speaking guide and entrance tickets on the way). Tipon however is not a part of the ride as it needs a Boleto Touristico.

2. Town of Cusco and Ruins nearby: dedicate a half day to a full day for Cusco itself depending on your interests. A multitude of museums on Incan history and art exist in Cusco. We did the museo del Inca and found it to be quite the fun. Qorikancha temple is another site that can be visited within cusco town. Both these sights have their own entrance tickets costing 10 soles each. Plaza de Armas and plaza de San Francisco are good places to hang out in the evenings. Grab a coffee around the plaza de Armas to experience to get the real feel for Peruvian life.

Dedicate a day for the ruins of sacsayhuaman, qenko, puka pukara and tambomachay. All these 4 sites are covered by Boleto touristico. We took a taxi for 15 soles to sacsayhuaman from city centre. This is a masterpiece so close to the city of cusco which has 3 layers of tall ramparts and a temple of sun within the site. You can then walk to the Christ figure overlooking the entire city and then proceed to the next site of Qenko. All these 3 sites are within 1 km of each other. You can then take a bus to tambomachay just outside the site of Qenko. This is a blue colored bus that plies every 5-10 mins and costs 1 sole to get there. Tambomachay, a temple of water and an Inca bath and Puka Pukara are next to each other. You can take the same bus back to city centre for another sole.

The train journey along the Sacred valley

3. Sacred valley: Contains 4 ruins; Moray, Chinchero, Pisac and Ollantaytambo all of which covered by Boleto touristico. We did a 1-day trip to Sacred Valley. The trip covered Chinchero, large agricultural terraces that dominating an entire hill side, where we spent about 2 hours. The next stop was Ollantaytambo which has a Sun Temple and terraces that can only be rivaled by the ones seen in Chinchero. This ruin has some very interesting history and explains the ways of Incan life. The hill opposite the Ollantaytambo ruin has 2 human faces embedded, one of a grumpy man and other of an Inca warrior. Strongly recommend that you hike the mountain across the ruin if you have time at hand, for which you would at least need 3-4 hours.

Moray is believed to be an agricultural laboratory with layers of terraces where the Incas experimented with different crops in varying temperatures. Adjacent to Moray are the Salinas de Maras where salt is made even today. Pisac is a market town (4 days a week) and ruin spot which comes highly recommended. It is difficult to cover all 4 in one day and might need 2 days to do all extensively.



4. Machupicchu is covered separately here.