5-star treatment in Cuzco (14-15/Jun/06)

Huaraz, Peru

Wow, this is the life! My first 5* hotel (that I remember, my father assures me I lacked nothing as a kid and had been in one but I was too young to remember). Also no more thinking for nearly 2 weeks, all has been pre-booked and pre-planned from Spain. We’d also arranged a couple of tours ourselves with the agency we did the Inca Trail with.

First we had a walking tour of Cuzco which was really good as the guide made it all come alive. The afternoon tour of nearby Inca ruins was a bit worse though. The next day we went on a big tour of the sacred Valley and its Inca ruins, also a success - did the normal route plus some salt pools and a Inca "laboratory", a set of cultivation terraces set out as concentric rings; the middle of the circle was low and was used to select crops for the lowlands (they even brought earth from there to simulate the local environment) and the outside was used to select crops for the highlands. Though feeling a bit overdosed on ruins now. Sadly we leave our lovely hotel and go off to a lodge in the jungle next.