On a Mission in Peru — Day 8
Today we arrived at Cusco and pretty much relaxed the whole day. First we arrived at the hotel, unpacked and got a two hour break to adapt to the altitude of 12,000 ft. We had all taken our high altitude pills to avoid horrendous headaches and dizziness. Our motto for the day was “easy does it”. After our relaxing time, we went to the center square where the entire town was celebrating the festival of Corpus Cristo. At the festival there was a huge parade of 12 floats being hand carried by different groups, trumpets and bands, food, candy apples, and a lot of other enjoyable things. There were people on every street inviting everyone to come to their restaurants. Food was being cooked everywhere on the streets. For lunch, we chose a traditional Peruvian restaurant and could view the parade and masses of people from the second floor. After lunch we went on to enjoy the festival some more. For dinner, we went to a pizzeria where the chefs bake the pizza in a wood oven (it was the best pizza I have ever had)! We are walking on little cobblestone streets from the 15th century and there are a lot of hills. Cuzqueños (people from Cusco) are in great shape, especially for the altitude. As we huffed and puffed our way back to our hotel, we saw happy locals like we have at the Indy 500 everywhere and bands played until late in the evening.
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Alexandria Dunlap (student of Mrs. Egan)
