So I’m about a week behind, but it has been a busy one so I will do my best to catch up.

I arrived in Cusco on time and checked into my hostel before wandering around town and killing time before my mom came. I was able to meet her at the airport and bring her back to the hostel. It was so nice to finally have her here 🙂 We didn’t waste any time and spent the rest of the day exploring Cusco. We checked in with our tour company for Machu Picchu, and walked around the main square. We also found the local market and I took my mom through her first local experience (the part of Cusco we are in is very touristy). We had a smoothie and bought some food for breakfast the next morning and snacks for later. It was a fairly rainy day so we decided to stop in at a coffee shop over looking the main square and just take everything in. We also had our briefing for Machu Picchu in the evening to prepare us for the trek on the Inka Trail. The best advice we were given was to get a rain poncho and a walking stick. Our guide, Washington seemed great and very knowledge so we got very excited got the trek. It was early to bed for both of us as we had a long night of traveling the night before.

The next day we spent taking it easy around town as my mom was still getting acclimatized to the altitude. We went on a bus tour of the city and went to a great lookout point over the city. We also did some shopping around to get last minute supplies for the trek. It was raining again so we decided to check out an Inca sight that is located in the city. There are many parts of old Cusco that have inca remains such as buildings or walls, and then a building was built around it or using the foundation but done by the spaniards after they over took the Incas, so parts of the architecture is a mix of Incan and colonial.

Once again it was early to bed because we were being picked up at 5:15am the next day to begin our 4 day hike to Machu Picchu on the ancient Inca Trail.