Cusco – Sacred Valley and around

We had pre-booked our Inca Trail Trek to Machu Picchu before leaving England so we headed from Iquitos to Cusco just before Christmas, arriving a few days early to give ourselves time to acclaimitize first. Although firmly on the gringo trail, Cusco still somehow manages to keep its charm and olde worlde feeling, with narrow cobbled streets, Inca walls and doorways, huge churches and kids on street corners selling matches and chewing gum. However, at the same time it is also awash with everything you'd expect of a major tourist destination, tour agencies, cafes serving silly latte's and cappachino's, fake Irish bars and girls on street corners offering massages….I think it was to aid those aching muscles after the Inca Trek!! We spent the few days before and after the Inca trek checking out ruins around the city (the most impressive of which was called sacsayhuaman), visiting small villages in the sacred valley, mountain biking down narrow rocky dirt tracks (with numerous punctures and one big drop to the side!) and just watching the world go by in one of the fore-mentioned cafes. Nothing like resting up before and after a big trek eh!!