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Altitude Sickness – Peru Day 3
Cusco is beautiful! An hour flight from Lima, and nestled between mountain valleys, the scenery was worth waking up at 3am to catch a sunrise flight. Being up 11,000 feet above sea level, you don’t immediately feel the altitude sickness creeping up at you but it definitely crept up and then smacked me in the face. We rested at the gorgeous Eco Inn Hotel for several hours before our tour began at 1pm. We helped our selves to coca tea in the lobby which reminds me a lot like green tea. However, after I drank it, I felt hot flashes and even a tad feverish.
Our first stop was the Arzobispado Del Cusco Basilica Cathedral. Insanely huge and antiquely. Filled with gold, silver, and really cool old paintings and artwork. What I thought most interesting was converted Incas were trained to do the Catholic murals. So there was a ton of rather mysterious and I thought even creepy Inca iconography hidden in a ton of the Catholic paintings which my dear Quechua tour guide enthusiastically detailed for us. Quechua is the language and group of people that are the descendants of the Incas. They are the traditional people of the Peruvian mountains who worship the Apu (mountain) and the Pachamama (mother earth). Within the church my lips were already turning purple from lack of oxygen and my headache was in 2nd gear.
Second stop was the Santo Domingo convent, which was built over the Inca Temple of the Sun, special thanks to the Spanish Conquistadors. Due to many earthquakes, they had to keep rebuilding the convent, and re-plastering the walls to hide the genious Inca stonework whose integrity was seen time and time again throughout the Sacred Valley. Inca architecture is considered the original Legos, something modern architecture and technology is having difficulty replicating. And I no longer had adequate blood flowing through my body…
And because I felt like total caca, this never-ending tour was unfortunately less than half enjoyed and even though I seriously tried, I was forcing myself to appreciate the ruins as more than just neatly stacked giant rocks. As I felt my death coming, we commenced the tour to even higher elevation to Puca Pucara the fortress gates of the ancient ruins of Sacsayhuaman (or sexywoman for lazy Americans).
At an altitude of 12,000 feet, and with every step my heart pumping ten fold, I still climbed the top of the ruins to get the best view I could of the sacred area. It was breath taking, both literally and figuratively.
We then headed to Tambomachay, the sacred fountain that symbolize life, health, and fertility. They have no idea how the Inca got the water to flow through their temple at this site, and to find out, they would have to take the ruins apart. They say if you touch the waters you’ll be blessed with many babies. As much as I adore children, I dared not touch the fountains to test the Inca folklore and mysteriously pop 12babies. The last stop where I was really fighting the urge to stay on the tour bus, was Qenko. An old temple built almost like a maze, where a sacrificial alter laid beneath giant rocks in the darkness. We then headed back on the bus back to Cusco and got back to the hotel around 630.
As I reached the doorways of the hotel, I loudly barfed air and whatever food particles was left in my stomach from 7 hours ago. I don’t think I will be eating any form of beef for a long while. As we got to the room, I asked my mom is she could get me some coca tea from the lobby as they say it helps alleviate altitude sickness. I gulped it down and the fevers and chills began for the rest of the night. Every time I breathed it felt like my brain was burning, the headache was insane. Around midnight I asked my aunt if she had some aspirin and the fever subsided and I was finally able to sleep.
The following morning my wonderful mom went to the pharmacy to grab some Sorojchi pills or altitude sickness pills and coca candies to help me through our next day of touring. They had only experienced mild headaches wince they had stayed in the bus for the later half of the tour and did not push their physical limits.
Despite being sick, it was memorable and traumatizing for the first day on the cobble streets of Cusco. Also I’d like to note that Peru confuses me, yet in a good way. The history is understandable, so if you really take in the buildings and architecture of Peru, you can really see the blending of architecture of Spanish style influence by Muslim Moors, colonial, baroque, jungle, mountain hut style, and Inca styles all meshed into an incomprehensible, yet charming, welcoming, beautiful quilt of a country.