May 15th, 2018 - Lauren McDaniel

Today we visited a collection of Incan ruins in up in the mountains in Cusco: Saqsayhuaman, Quenq, Pucapucara, and Tambomachay. With these locations being so high up, we were able to get beautiful views of the entire city which were breathtaking to witness. It was also cool to see different locations I have been to in the city like the Plaza de Armas and even the area where my homestay family lives. The amazing views did not stop there as well as we were able to see areas where the sun rays looked absolutely stunning, especially due to the timing over our tour being in the afternoon with sunset approaching. I was amazed to hear how the views are so breathtaking at sunrise or sunset that people come daily to see them on the mountains as they get to see the sun peak through the mountain valleys, making me very curious about the view right at those specific times.

Other than those spectacular views, we were able to learn more about Incan culture when visiting those locations from our tour guide. The most interesting facts I found were how the Incans were able to move such giant rocks to create the structures by putting rollers under the rocks and how they used big boulders in their construction that they could not move. It showed how intelligent the civilization was due to the amount of planning they needed to consider, which I found very impressive. It also displayed the amount of cooperation within people in the civilization, especially in moving boulders as many of the ones our guide told us the Incans moved were very big meaning much manpower was needed to move them. This made the ruins even more remarkable to me due to the history present and way they were built.

Later in the night, I was able to go out with a group to the Plaza de Armas to experience some of the Peruvian nightlife. We ended up participating in a salsa lesson along with other tourists and locals. It was a lot of fun to learn as I have wanted to learn how to properly salsa and to dance better overall as I am not the best dancer. The lesson was somewhat successful as I started to get the hang of it a little bit. However, that did not prevent me from bumping into Briana and Kayla several times while dancing. Nevertheless, it was a lot of fun to attempt even if I was still struggling. It was also real cool to see those who could salsa very well dance as it was amazing to watch and see the skill they had. Overall, the day was very eventful full of several fun activities along with being able to learn more about the Incans and Peruvian culture.

‘Hola’ from Saqsayhuaman!

The city of Cusco from atop a mountain!