All Dogs Go to Cuzco

One of the days we were in Peru, I asked the boo (for blog purposes of course) to take a picture of me with every dog we saw, just for one day, in Cuzco.  He followed through taking pictures of about 80% of the dogs we saw, and I ended up looking like the star of American Dog Creepers.  So before I entertain all ten of you readers with our five day trek to Machu Picchu, here is the rest of Cuzco summarized by dog greetings.

After a long first half of the day riding horses through Saqsayhuaman, we took our hostel's recommended walking tour of Cuzco.  Basically, we looked at our free map and followed the yellow path to the sites of Cuzco.  This dude above was laying in the Plaza de Armas of Cuzco as we started our tour.  He's seen better days, in my opinion.

Typical Peruvian dog fashion

We continued along and found ourselves in front of the Cuzco Chocolate Museum.  A dude was outside handing out brochures and we went into a courtyard and up the steps to the small museum which took up about three decent sized rooms.  Inside we were able to learn about chocolate for free, drink complementary chocolate tea (SO good), and try some coco beans for free.  We purchased coca infused chocolate (more about coca leaves on the trek) and watched a group make chocolate.  We could have purchased chocolate making lessons there, but it didn't work with our schedule since we were meeting a man from our tour company that would brief us on our trek.  

Continuing along, we walked step after step up to an opening that presented a couple of museums and a restaurant.  In hindsight, I wish we had seen just one museum in Cuzco because our trekking guides highly recommended it.  Plus the museums featured mummies.  This dude above, literally sat there watching us walk our way up to him and then chilled while I pet his head.  Dogs in Cuzco live the dream.



Doesn't this one look like Lady from Lady & the Tramp?  Anywho, our walking tour took us to an ancient Incan wall where you could see a puma and a python hidden in the wall.  There were shops lining that area and the shopkeepers gave us postcards with the puma pictured so we could find it for ourselves. 



This big black lab greeted us as we came back into the plaza where the Cathedral de Cuzco sat.  He was the most lively pup I met, who trotted along merrily and appreciated a good butt scratch.  I'm pretty sure I also met his girlfriend below.

We were able to see most of the city although the parts of Peru surrounding Cuzco are worth spending an extra few days in Cuzco.  Pretty much everybody we met (except for Americans) were spending months in South America seeing the entire continent.  I'm extremely jealous of everyone else's cojones (that's Español for balls) to just drop everything and travel for who knows how long.  It makes me get philosophical about life.  If I have 50 or 60 years left who cares if I just drop everything and go where I want when I'm young?  Ahhhh life QUESTIONS. 

After our walking tour we headed back to our hostel for BBQ night and a briefing from our trekking company.  This little fellow above slept on the corner of the street our hostel was on and looks exactly like my parents' dog Boomer.  He shared in our BBQ leftovers when we went back out on the town to find long underwear for our trek.  I was super sad to leave Cuzco and nervous about our trek.  But the sights we saw later on blew our minds.