Top Reasons to Go to Cusco & Machu Picchu

Top Reasons to Go to Cusco & Machu Picchu

Cusco

Alpaca Clothing

Wrap yourself in alpaca. Nothing says "Cusco" quite like a sweater, shawl, poncho, or scarf woven from the hair of the downright cute and cuddly alpaca. Its many fans rate the texture right up there with cashmere. Did anything ever feel so soft?

Andean Cuisine

Expand the limits of your palate. You never thought you'd sample such Andean delicacies as cuy (guinea pig) or alpaca? Be brave. They sound atrocious, but are actually quite tasty. Alpaca is touted for its tender, low-fat, low-cholesterol beeflike flavor, while cuy compares favorably to pork. Both are best when prepared in a fogón, an open-air oven.

Potatoes and other vegetables, more than wheat, are staples in this part of Peru. Papas rellenas, or potatoes stuffed with meat or vegetables, remain a particular favorite here. Choclo, the region's distinctive white-kernel corn, can be eaten on the cob, as part of soups, as a side dish, or brewed into chicha, a corn beer drunk at room temperature and sold from rural homes that display a red flag in front.

Inca Architecture

Ponder the secrets of the universe. How did the Inca construct stone walls so precisely using 15th-century technology? How could they position a temple so it would be illuminated best at the exact moment of the solstice? The questions never end; the answers are few.

Layered Religion

Give equal time to all deities. Arguably, no place in the world has grafted Christianity onto indigenous belief quite the way Cusco's old city officials did. Every Catholic church was built on the site, and often the foundation, of an Inca huaca, or sacred place.

Hotels with History

Sleep in a part of the past. Cusco's hostelries brim with history. Many did duty in a former life as convents, monasteries, dwellings of sacred women, or palaces of Spanish conquerors or Inca emperors. That cookie-cutter chain hotel back home will never seem quite the same.

Macchu Picchu

Mysticism

Few regions of the world can match the mystique-per-square-kilometer quotient of Cusco, Machu Picchu, and the Sacred Valley that connects them. Mystics, shamans, spiritualists, astrologers, and UFO spotters, professionals and wannabes, homegrown and international, all flock to this serene region where the unknown overshadows the known and where every new discovery raises new questions. Even the most no-nonsense curmudgeons find themselves contemplating the secrets of history and the mysteries of the cosmos.

Ruins

Hiram Bingham "discovered" Machu Picchu in 1911. Your first glimpse of the fabled city from the Funeral Rock will be your own discovery, and likely every bit as exciting. But it's not all Machu Picchu out here; it just seems that way. Pisac and Ollantaytambo both have ancient fortresses, and Chinchero has the remains of a palace. Don't miss them.

Shopping

Sure. The three-times-weekly market in Pisac gets crowded and touristed but all those visitors can't be wrong. Ceramics, woolens, and jewelry abound.

Trekking the Peruvian Wilds

The two- to four-day hike of the Inca Trail from near Ollantaytambo to Machu Picchu is the region's (and possibly South America's) best-known outdoor expedition, but other trekking options abound in the area.