The day after, we moved to Cusco by bus.

Since Cusco sits at more than 3300 meters above sea level a mild altitude sickness is not uncommon. Fortunately we came from Puno (that is even higher!) and were already accustomed to the altitude. Generally many hotels provide the tired tourists with fresh coca tea to help alleviate the symptoms.

After our arrival in Cusco, the navel of the World, and a quick stop in the hotel we had a first visit of Cusco walking around the plaza de Armas and trough the amazing alleys of the Barrio de San Blas to admire some famous spots as the Cathedral of Cusco and the twelve-corners stone. The next day we visited Koricancha, the former Inca Temple of the Sun, used by the Spaniards to build their Santo Domingo church.

Since the church was built directly on top of an Incan structure, the original foundation is still all Inca. Inside the temple you can admire the walls that were built with intricate interlocking stones and no mortar (this is typical of Inca architecture: no mixture of lime or cement was used as a bonding agent between stones); it is amazing to observe how the stones used for the walls perfectly fit into each other.

We also visited the huge ruins at Saqsaywaman (or Sacsahuaman or Sacsayhuamán), on a hill overlooking the city of Cuzco. The site is massive, but only about one fifth of the original structure remains. After the conquest, the Spaniards used the site as a quarry; so many walls were torn down to make Spanish houses and churches. The walls here have the same interlocking, mortar-free design as the Inca walls in Cuzco. However, the stones are considerably more massive, (some weighting hundreds of tons!). On the following we also have a quick look to Qenco: a huge and holey piece of rock where there have been created stairs, seats, a snake, a puma, tunnels and many more. We then finished our day with a visit to the temple of the moon, Puca Pucara and to Tambo Machay.

Another worth trip is the tour of the sacred valley of the Incas (Valle Sagrado in Spanish) that extends along the Urubamba River. On the valley one encounters picturesque villages with impressive colonial churches, terraces and other archaeological places. Pisac, Chinchero, Urubamba, Maras and Ollantaytambo are some of the villages that you may visit.

Our first stop is Pisac, a picturesque town of creole and colonial aspect well-known for its Indian market that is a good place to pick up some souvenirs and see the Andean Villagers in their traditional clothing, that is to our opinion a sort of ‘entrapment’ for tourists looking for souvenirs. Very remarkable and worth to see are the Pisac ruins, known for the terraces girdling the lower slopes. Above them, narrow paths and steep staircases lead to the temple area from which you can admire a wonderful panorama of the sacred valley and the Urubamba river.

After the lunch we then moved to the Ollantaytambo ruins, where we had the chance to admire the gigantic stones used to build such a remarkable structure. Here the Inca stonework is truly impressive: walls have rounded sections, wrapped around a contour and also extended out at the bottom and the whole structure rivals (to our opinion, at least) with the Machu Picchu ruins.

We are now in the late afternoon and the light gets better and better and the entire region looks magical, especially when we move to the final destination of the day, Chinchero. Here, in the middle of huge, snowy peaks, we walk through the picturesque alleys and gaze to the colonial church, built on Inca foundations, before the sun disappears behind the mountains in a magic atmosphere.

Chinchero is probably the most typical town in the sacred Valley of the Incas, here the conquerors wanted to "civilize" and establish their culture, but they were never able to achieve it completely. Its inhabitants still live in the almost untouched Inca constructions where their ancestors lived.