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Published: April 27th 2009
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When I did finally manage to drag myself away from Lima I was faced with a 20 hour bus journey up to Cusco, the ancient city in the mountains. Although I wasnt looking forward to this at first, I met another guy from the hostel who was getting the same bus as me and we got on well so I had someone to talk to, and I watched some movies and read a book. They do have some funny choices of movies on south america buses though. There were a few children on the bus and first they showed a badly dubbed disney film and then for some strange unknown Peruvian reason followed that with a mexican child sex slave movie. Go figure that one out. The first half of the journey was fine because the buses here are really comfortable, the seats lean back quite alot and there is plenty of leg room, but as we started to cimb towards Cusco I experienced the craziness of South American bus drivers in full force. Hurtling around hairpin corners in the middle of the night and almost being thrown to the other side of the bus and having bags and guitars randomly
raining down from the overhead storage made it virtually impossible to sleep. If you are looking for up and coming racing drivers forget looking around the go karting leagues, just come to Peru and get some of the bus drivers!
Grateful to arrive in Cusco alive I decided to stay at the Loki hostel here but promised myself that this time I would actually get my backside away from the hostel bar at least sometimes and go out and see some cultural stuff. To show you how popular loki hostel is, and why it is so fun to stay there, I turned up on the first day to find out that what I thought had been a reservation that I had made two days ago had actually been my name put on the waiting list, so I was told that they couldnt fit me in that night but they could after that. They then reccomended another hostel just 20 metres down the road and I ended up in an 8 person dorm all to myself! The Loki in Cusco has over 200 beds so it was a really fun place to hang out and the bar got pretty crazy
at night. There are hamocks out in a grassy courtyard which were great for relaxing in the morning after a night out. The free breakfast in the morning also consisted of unlimited coffe which was also great for the hangovers.
Cusco is an amazing city. Its the oldest continually inhabited city in the world situated up in the mountains of Peru at an elevation of 3300 metres and is surrounded by ancient Inca buildings and sites and stunning mountains. The city has a really, really old feel to it and if it werent for the taxis, tourists and internet cafes you would swear that you had gone back in time. People wander the streets wearing traditional Peruvian clothing with Lamas and baby sheep. Check out the photos. On my first night in Loki I met loads of people that I had met in Lima including those irish girls which was really cool. It really is incredible how many people you meet when you are travelling that you met in other places, cities or even other countries. Everyone that I have met has said the same thing, just goes to show how much I must be following the gringo (thats
what they call tourists over here) trail. One of my friends here met a girl in this hostel that he met in Vietnam 3 months ago!
For the first couple of days I really didnt feel like doing much because the high altitude gave me headaches and made me feel really tired. I spent the first couple of days in an internet cafe paying 40 cents an hour doing some work on my new internet business while I got over it. On the second night I met a guy from New York in the bar who had rented a car to travel around Peru in. We decided to make our own tour and drive around some of the Inca ruins which are located around Cusco. They were really amazing, these photos really dont do it any justice at all. The mountains are just unbelievably big and intimidating and the ruins are really awesome. My favourite one was Pisaq which had lots of ruins spread across two mountains. It was hard work getting around them but definitely worth it. Thats where I met grampa stans identical twin Peruvian brother! If you ever go to Peru make sure you go there.
I woke up one morning, dont remember which morning it was because i dont even know what day it is half of the time anyway, and met Stephanie and Rachael at breakfast and two other Irish girls, (yeah there is a lot of Irish here for some reason). We started talking about going hanggliding and then decided that it would be a great idea to go today so within half an hour we were down in the tour office trying to book it. He told us that to go you had to be at the take off point by 9am, and seeing as we hadnt even got out of be until 12 we had no hope. However not being deterred we decided to go to the Irish pub to plan what to do over a pint. Three hours and several pints later we came up with a brilliant new plan of staying in the pub for the rest of the day. Gotta love having no responsibilities and nothing that you have to do!
While I was in Cusco I visited some museums and historical sites which were really cool. Cusco is a great place to just wander around
because there is so much history there and things to see. However my lasting memory of Cusco will be the many clubs that we spent the nights cruising around. Mamma Africa, Mystique, Mushrooms all had loads of great local music and girls and were really different to clubs back home. The girls are much better at doing sexy dances here than back in Australia for one thing. Then there was the Irish pub which is actually the highest owned Irish pub in the world and was great for pre drinks. A night out here is really cheap as well, there is never a cover charge, beers cost about 1 dollar and if you are smart about it and pretend that you are going to another club they will give you free drink cards to get you in the door, one night I managed to get three before I even got in the door.
St Patricks day was really fun here, the hostel was draped in green and served guiness and irish stew all day, we went and played crazy drinking games down in the Irish Pub and then hit up the clubs that night. I picked up a local
girl from Lima in the club and didnt leave her house until 10 am the next day and didnt get to sleep until 6 that night and then slept for 16 hours. Great fun! At first I had thought that I wouldnt get on the Inca trail because everyone that I spoke to said that you had to book it months in advace and seeing as my plans only stretch one or two days in advance I had no chance. However I had got to know Seb, the manger of the hostel in Lima quite well and he gave me the name of a really good travel agent and then I was able to get on the Inca trail in 9 days time which I was really pleased about. So anyway, after being in Cusco for a week I suddenly realised that I only had a day and a half until I left on the Inca Trail and I didnĀ“t have a clue about any of the things that I would need, or what I was supposed to do etc. So it was a hectic day and a bit of franticaly trying to organise it all. It was totally worth
it though, in fact it was so awesome that I have a made a post just for that. Check it out.
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