Peru – First Impressions

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May 25th, 2008

After a long day of travel, I made it safely to Peru.  All 4 of my flights went smoothly (San Francisco to Houston to Panama City to Lima to Cusco), and I got into Cusco around 7am this morning.  The hardest part was the six hours in the Lima airport from midnight to six am, although the airport was surprisingly busy during those hours.  Unfortunately, Eric’s flights did not go as planned.  His flight to Lima got cancelled and he won’t be able to get in until tomorrow. 

After I caught up on my sleep, I went to go explore the city.  My first impression of Cusco is that I love it.  It is a maze of narrow cobblestone streets with lots of open plazas and interesting old buildings, plus there are the occasional llamas walking around (or are those alpaca?), which you don’t see everyday.   It definitely caters to the tourists and there are lots of gringos walking around, but it still has a lot of character of its own and the locals seem to outnumber the tourists.  It is also in a beautiful location, being surrounded on all sides by mountains.  I’m looking forward to checking out other parts of the city and trying out some more of the local cuisine (I had some Alpaca pizza for lunch.  That was a first for me.) 

More updates to come.