Getting High in Peru, Year 2: Archaeological Adventures. : Getting High in Peru, Year 2: Choquequirao.

Choquequirao, Peru’s “Cradle of Gold City,” is NOT the Sister City of Machu Picchu or the OTHER Machu Picchu

I first came to hear of this (for me back then) unpronounceable site was back in 2013 while in Cusco and at Machu Picchu. It was our students’ guide, Jesus, who mentioned it briefly. It didn’t mean much to me then. This was my first time to Peru, to Cusco, and now Machu Picchu. Sometime later it came back to me---what, Machu Picchu has a sister city? As a boy I remember looking at the pictures of Machu Picchu (National Geographic) wishing I could go there, and now here I am, and I find out that there is another one? Then I asked Katia, a friend here in Arequipa about this site that I could not pronounce. She knew what I was talking about and fed me some information. Now that I had the spelling of the site, I then went to Lonely Planet, Peru, which I discovered only had two small paragraphs of info, and so I went to Google Earth and wow! It exists. Now I began to wonder if I could go to this site in 2014.

I did in October 2014, but it will take me a while to digest my visit. Suffice it to say now that as an archaeologist my 5 day/4 night visit was an emotional experience. Right now I am blogging the pics of my travel companions, Edson, my guide, and Froydis from Norway, who has an interesting story to tell as we welcomed her to join us. Actually, it was providential that she joined us already on Day 1. More details later. We began the quest for Choquequirao accompanied by 3 mules, 2 mule caretakers, a chef (he was fantastic), and the three of us.
Blogspot is not being cooperative. I had to change my name to 'Kees' my Dutch name in order to post.