Day 88 06.10.15
After having woken up, I felt a little better but not really my usual self. We boarded a little van to take us to our big transportation bus, which was arguably even better equipped than the one we took from Nasca to Arequipa. Even further reclineable chairs, another couple of movies, and even though we didn’t have the snacks, we were able to entertain ourselves with audio books or series of the bridge (a Dutch television series).
We arrived in Cusco eventually after a short stop, which we desperately used as a toilet stop, knowing that there wouldn’t be another stop around for another 3 hours until we reached Cusco.
After a short acclimatisation time we headed out for our orientation walk.
At this time I was feeling even worse than before. Really bloated, with immense pressure on my stomach, I could hardly walk upright. While walking through Cusco, enjoying the view through the pain, we got to see different colonial churches and as well as different Incan structures.
Especially interesting were the different walls from the Incan time. If they built just normal settlements the stone structure wasn’t as accurate. If they were building a temple on the other hand, the stones would be placed so precise that you can’t even pass a thin piece of paper through the cracks.
We passed a little garden, where you can observe the intelligent irrigation system the Incans implemented back then to bring the water from the mountains to the city.
This cathedral is also very interesting, as it is again built on top of the Incan temple demonstrating the power assertion of the Spanish over the indigenous.
We headed onwards to the big main plaza, where tourist shops, and tourists were taking a stroll everywhere, as well as several churches and cathedrals were flanking its sides.
On the way back to the hotel we passed a café that I was going to go to several times during my stay in Cusco called Jacks.
On the main avenue – la avenida del sol, there is a little cross that demonstrates the different districts of the Incan time. The Puma demonstrates Cusco, as it outlines sort of the shape of the city and the arrows point to the different districts, such as the highlands, the lowlands, the jungle and the coast with Cusco being in the centre of it all.
After a extensive city tour, where I was pretty much just clutching my stomach to find some sort of relief or at least to let me be able to walk around, I decided it would be best to head back to the hotel and to sleep. I did rest a bit and then felt hungry and opted to go out to eat something quick – pasta never hurt nobody.
We waited and waited and unfortunately I couldn’t eat much of the otherwise tasty pasta. I headed back to the hotel and had a doctor see me, so that I had another day of recovery in Cusco (our free day) before starting the hike. He came to see me and was more interested in my deep vein thrombosis risk than actually in my upset stomach. Finally he prescribed some antibiotics and some antiparasitic in order to heal my entrocolitis (an inflammation of the intestinal tract). I had the medication delivered straight to the hotel room, which was just amazing and then I went to sleep and hoped for some relief.
