Cusco town and baby alpacas!

We arrived at our guesthouse Torre Dorada this morning around 7am and went straight to bed until midday. We chose the hotel because it had really good trip advisor reviews, especially for the service and trips plus it was great value. It is located in Cusco which is the historic capital of the Inca Empire and most well known for being the closest town to Machu Picchu. It is over 3,000 metres (10,000 feet) above sea level which is the highest we have ever been on land. It is much more difficult to breathe especially after climbing stairs and I felt a bit sick so I now have some altitude sickness tablets. It’s also really cold here which we weren’t expecting so the hoodies and trousers are back out!

The hotel offers a free shuttle into town at anytime of day so they took us down to the main square about 2pm where there are lots of local restaurants and an Irish Pub that claims to be the highest Irish bar on the planet. We had some lunch in a little restaurant called Heidi where we each had soup, beef noodles and cheesecake for about £5 each! We then had a walk down the road and came across the Coricancha or Qorikancha Temple, we paid for a short tour and learned that it was the most important temple to the Inca Empire and was once covered with sheets of gold before the Spanish invaded and stole it all.

Outside the temple were women with lamas and alpacas that they use to get tourists to pay money for photos. I couldn’t resist, there was a little baby brown llama and she plonked him into my arms where he sat and licked me for a minute or 2. There were some bigger alpacas that were also really cute but a bit big to pick up!

We then walked back to Paddy’s Irish bar because Arsenal were playing Newcastle, in true Irish style Chalkie ordered a pint of Guiness and luckily Arsenal won right at the last minute so he was happy. On the street outside the pub there was another women with an even smaller alpaca who was so cute I had a cuddle with him, he was wearing a little wollen hat and Paul fed him some milk out of a bottle. Someone from the hotel picked us up and took us back about 5pm and we went to our rooms for a siesta.

We weren’t up for going out tonight as we were still really tired so we ordered some takeaway pizzas and watched a film. There was a power cut at about 8.30pm so everyone at the B&B went out onto the roof terrace to look at the stars, it was quite clear and Paul had an astronomy app on his iPad which pointed out Mars! We are hoping to do a star gazing trip later in the week if the weather is clear.