Author: neil

Week 2 Cusco likes “7”. The flower-lined staircase that our AirBNB looks down on is named “Calle 7 Borreguitos” (“Street of 7 Little Lambs”). Nearby is “Calle 7 Diablitos” (“…Little Devils”), and there are five others around the city for a total of…7. More-recently, the city’s flag was designed with 7 rainbow stripes. And the…

Week 1 The major downside of our AirBNB’s location at the northwest corner of Cusco was the challenge of getting there with our bikes and luggage. But now settled in, we could take advantage of the upside: every walk to anywhere would “force” us to explore the historic area’s now-charming narrow lanes and hidden stairways…

It’s been three weeks since we’ve done a proper Andean mountain-climb (on our bikes; we’ve done some on foot!), but today was the day to see if we remembered how. It was time to climb out out of the Sacred Valley, and then (partially) back down to the Inca capital of Cusco. The city is…

Day 2 Yesterday afternoon’s rain returned at night, and was visiting yet again when we woke up at 5:15am. Our plan for the day had been to get out early to do a hike through the extensive Pisac archeological site above the town, so thankfully by the time we had finished breakfast and gotten ready…

We were still alive on this earth when we woke up, and a glance out the window brought further relief, showing that the wildfire on the mountainside had not moved much nearer than where we had left it last night. In fact, it was difficult to discern clouds from smoke, but stepping outside, the eerily-massive…