Tag Archives: Cusco

Cusco

August 29, 2018 – September 4, 2018

Legend has it that the sun god, Inti, looked down on the world in the 12th century and decided that the people needed a leader.  He created the first Inca (king), Manco Capac and his sister-wife Mama Occlo.  The pair emerged from Isla del Sol in Lake Titicaca.  Inti gave Manco Capac a golden rod and told the pair to settle where Manco Capac was able to plunge the rod completely into the earth.  This spot would become the navel of the earth (qosq’o in the Quechua language).  And that is how Cusco got it’s name.  The city has been inhabited ever since, making it the oldest continuously inhabited city in South America.  It was the centre of the vast Inca empire and it was, and still is, the centre of Inca culture.

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Huacachina, Nazca and the Drive to Cusco

August 27, 2018 – August 29, 2018

Huacachina is a tiny, oasis resort town surrounded by huge sand dunes.  It was once the playground for elite Peruvians, but is now frequented more by tourists who rent snowboards or skis to first climb up, then swoosh their way down the sand dunes.  We stopped in town for some lunch and watched boarders climb the enormous sand dunes in the hot midday sun, we didn’t see many coming back down though; maybe they were reluctant to climb back up again. After lunch we decided to move on.

The lagoon in the middle of town.

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