Cusco is situated at around 3,500 m (11,500 feet) and some people who visit suffer from altitude sickness. It shouldnt take much to figure out, given the title of this blog, that it hit, and it hit pretty bad. After about 12 hours in Cusco we both started to get headaches. We were able to keep it at bay with painkillers for the first few hours but during the night it got really bad for me with strong headache, sharp pain across the eyes and in the morning nausea. I didn’t get much sleep.
Fortunately, today we spent traveling to Aguas Calientes and Machu Piccu which are at a lower altitude than Cusco so we both got instantly better. Fantastic!
The challenge is that we are now back in Cusco and the headache is there. Not yet as bad as this morning. We will see how the night goes. In any case, we are flying out tomorrow morning, returning to Lima.