It´s a nice place, a bit cold during the nights, but what do you expect when you´re at 3300 meters above sea level during the winter. The first 2 days have been nice and sunny. The city is beautifull, full of life and full of sights.
Haven´t been able to do anything really yet other than to acclimatize myself, well atleast the coca leaves and the coca tea work just fine. Seems like the bronchitis I had while in chile didn´t go away with the medication they gave me there so I checked myself in at Cuzco´s best hospital, got to love having the insurance. After they x-rayed me and took a blood sample it was clear that the infection hadn´t died yet, and if left untreated I´d have pneumonia in a few days.
They recommended that I´d stay a night enjoying the drugs from an IV drip, so that I´d recover faster and I took that option. Why the hell not, the rooms here are warmer than our hostel and I actually have a TV and really great view.
After getting out of here tomorrow I´ll take it easy for a few days and then we´ll go to Machu Pichu etc. We´ll probably stay in Cuzco and the surrounding area for 6-8 days before going to Bolivia.
Update...
Well, seems like the infection was a bit more stubborn than the doctors first thought, even though my fever never reached over 37.5C they recommended that I´d stay here a bit longer and recuperate just to make sure I´m healthy enough to continue to bolivia. It looks like we might be around Cuzco til the end of the next week. Well atleast the hospital is nice, food is ok, they´ve got a chef here for the foreigners who takes orders, internet, and everything.
Update - 14 August
After just lying down in the hospital for a few days it was really nice to get out, but then again when you haven´t done anything in three days and start walking around the town at this altitude you really notice it after just a 100 meters, but it´s been fun to finally to be able to do something.
Yesterday we had a nice big dinner with some spanish guys and girls we met while buying our train tickets to Machu Pichu for thursday. It must be hard to believe back in Finland that our dinner of quite traditional catalonian food for two cost about 16USD and included, 2 beers, 2 glasses of wine, a rum and a maté de coca, starters and main courses
Update 15 August
Yesterday we did some sightseeing, visiting tourist attractions like the local cathedral, which was huge, had amazing artwork and the altar was made of pure silver, weighing quite a few tons.
I did some shopping and ended up with a nice alpaca wool sweater and some souviniers. In the evening we enjoyed the traditional peruvian dishesh such as roasted guinea pig and fried guinea pig. There are some pictures in the Cuzco gallery for all the pet lovers.
Tomorrow we´ll head down to Machu Pichu at 6AM and spend a night there.
