South America and Antarctica

We are now in Cusco, in southeastern Peru. Cusco has a population of around half a million people and was the capital of the Inca empire from the thirteenth century until it was conquered by the Spanish in the sixteenth century.

We got off to a slow start this morning, sleeping in until 9:45am (which was not the plan!). We showered and dressed pretty quickly so we could make it down to breakfast before it finished. We had a quick breakfast and then headed back upstairs to pack. Four days in, packing should not have been too difficult but the extra clothes we bought certainly added to the complexity (and to the weight of our suitcases!).

We headed off the Santiago airport around midday and got to the airport in plenty of time, or so we thought. It turns out that our flight had been rescheduled to take off 15 minutes earlier than it was meant to, which was not a big deal. But it boarded very early and then took off a full half hour before its scheduled departure time! Now we know to be on the lookout for this.

The flight of about three and a half hours to Cusco was very pleasant. We dozed a bit and watched a bit of TV to pass the time. Once we arrived, we cleared immigration pretty quickly, which was good because the entire immigration area and combined baggage carousel was all one one very small room! After a little confusion in the airport, we found our driver and headed off to the Belmond Palacio Nazarenas hotel. The hotel is quite incredible. It is a former convent, built on the site of an Inca building and the original Inca stones have been reused in the building. In fact, our room has a wall built with these stones.

After settling in, we headed to the hotel’s restaurant where we had a lovely dinner of traditional Peruvian food, while being entertained by musicians and dancers.

We walked back via the hotel’s pool, which looked very pretty at night.

We are now back in the room and about to head to bed. We have an early start tomorrow to catch the train to Machu Picchu, where we’ll spend tomorrow night and all day on Sunday before catching the train back to Cusco for another night.

So far so good with regard to altitude sickness. Full disclosure though, the hotel pumps oxygen into our room to soften the effect! We’ll see how we go tomorrow without this extra assistance but we’re feeling confident!

The little alpacas placed in the bed are the tops of the hot water bottles that our butler has kindly placed in our bed for us. Our room has a number of other nice little touches like that too!

We think this is already one of our favourite hotels and we already love Peru, so we’re excited to keep exploring.