The scenery around Lake Titicaca is very pretty and although it all seems quite flat you are at a hefty altitude. Getting to Cusco involved a scenic drive along mountains and passes that slowly got greener and lusher as we neared the ancient Inca city, known as the navel of the world.
The sites en route were interesting in a slightly lame kinda way, the first being driven past an Inca site - little more than stone walls - and going instead to a small museum that housed a small but good collection of sculptures and carvings. Of course the guide told us about a few of them but never the ones that looked most interesting. It was interesting to learn that the Incas liked to behead their enemies and parade their heads around...nice.
A nice lunch was followed by the best site of all - an amazing temple complex very much intact with one central wall still standing nearly 13 metres tall. The temples was surrounded by a large area of royal enclosures and agricultural dwellings, some of which had been reconstructed and roofed in a traditional style so you could get a good idea of how it might have looked. A lovely introduction to the most famous Inca site yet to be visited.
The trip concluded with a church, called the Cistine chapel of South America which did indeed have some impressive paintwork but nothing anywhere close to Michelangelo's standard. Nevertheless, the ornate gold-encrusted altars gave a good impression of how the Spanish successfully plundered Peru's wealth.
Cusco is a very pretty city, nestled in amongst valleys at still quite an altitude. It is very reminiscent of the old part of Madrid - tiny winding cobbled streets with little cubby hole shops, cafes opening into pretty courtyards with more plazas and Churches than you can count. The touristy bits all come along with that - and prices to match - but nevertheless it retains a lovely charm not managed by many modern cities.
Not content with straight lines, Incas loved building walls with complicated stonework such as this crazy wall.
Of course, Cusco is the gateway to Machu Picchu and as we were too lazy to organise a place on the famous Inca trail (you have to book about 4 months in advance as it is limited to only 500 people at any one time), so we were going to just do the lazy train option but under advice from various friends and fellow-travellers we decided to do an alternative tour which we managed to arrange for the very next day.
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