Peru, Cusco - Amazing place, just seemingly hard to get in and out of!!

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And so the countdown to the end of our South America trip begins! We have only 3 dys left in this crazy, beautiful, challenging, corupt and awe inspiring continent...which mebns only 3 more days of speaking in 'pretend' Spanish (although our Spanish IS actually barely understndible now!!) only 3 more days of taking random buses and only 3 more days of waking up each morning parying that last nights dinner has not created WW3 in your stomach!

For the last week we have been based in Cusco - the historical centre and main city of the Sacred Valley - home to the Inca legends and close to masses and masses of amazing Inca ruins.
After our bus ride from hell and border control dramas, the four of us arrived in Cusco grumpy, tired....and without a booking for a hostel! Yeah, go us! Organised or what! Luckily, we found a decent place with 2 double rooms and before long we were heads down, alseep tryin to forget the dramas of the day and wake up afresh in a new country with lots of new and exciting things to see and explore!
Well lets just say this, our first morning in Cusco was possibly the best 'morning' i have had since i can remember...we found a cafe that did a full on English brekkie!!! I am not talking your standard eggs and bacon, i am talking a smorgasboard of cooked breakfast goodness....the lot...eggs, bacon,. sausage, beans, bread, tomatoe, little spuds coated in goodness, it was so amazing Jack and I didnt speak for about 30 mins, we had to have a break it was so big and for the rest of the day i was walkin around in a food induced coma, wallowing in my post breakfast goodness, sending my Bolivian bacteria infested stoamach into an absolute frenzy as it tried to understand what all this alien food was that was coming in and sorting out all that infected chicken from the Amazon!! GO BAKED BEANS!!
So, back to Cusco..its an amazing city, vry very historical but at the smae time grossly overrun with tourist touts and annoying women offering you a 'massaaaaaage' everyhwere you turn. By the end of the first day walking aorund the city i was clenching my water bottle like a club ready to wallop the next woman that asked me if i wanted a quick rub. Seriously low patience threshold when it comes to massage touts....!

Getting to Cusco was not only an achievement in itself for Nat and I, but it was also the pnnacle of our trip in many ways as we were there to visit Machu Picchu, the famous Inca ruins, discovered just 100 years ago. They are the picture postcard ruins that are synonymous with South America and have just been declared one of the new 7 wonders of the world (whatever that means, i didnt know they 'renewed' them..??!)
So on Friday Nat and I set off early from Cusco at 5.30am to catch a train 3 hours to Agues Caliente, the town at the foot of the mountain upon which Machy Picchu sits. From Agues Caliente it was a steep 30 minute bus ride winding up a mountain to the entrance to the ruins. he bus ride itself was worth the 3 hour train ride to get there. We were literally driving up through the clouds, driivng past lush green mountains, going higher and higher until we reached the top........

So you go from serenity, peace, amazing landscapes and a real sense of being somewhere spiritual and then you walk off the bus and you are face to ass with the Fat American tourist soceity, their white visors, their drawl, their water bottles stuck to their faces hydrating their dried up bodies, their white socks pulled up to their knees, skwaking each others names dragging each other in different directions. Great, welcome to Mchu Picchu! I dont mean to pick on the Americans, but the last few days they have had an overbearing presence, and just a few nights prior Nat, myslelf Jack and Jess entered a pub quiz in an ENGLUSH themed pub, and low and behold, the bloody quiz master was an American and nearly all the questions were about America and nearly all the teams were American tourists, feeling the need at every point they won to celebrate and cheer like they were at a f*****g baseball game. Sorry, rant over, god bless 'the land of opportunity'.

But Machu Picchu did not dissapoint, in fact it blew away all of our expectations, despite the amount of stories we had been told from other travellers and the amount of pics we had seen. As soon as walked over the crest to the main viewing point you are faced with a village of amazing ruins, set amongst a backdrop of mountains and blue sky, it was absolutely incredbile. We spent a good 4 hours exploring the ruins, walking around every nook and cranny with our map and hand guide! We didnt bother paying for a proper guide but we lingered behind some other groups who had paid for a guide at the interstin bits and listened in for free. Why not! Nat and i were clever enough to NOT follow the arrows aroun the ruins and so went the opposuite way, meaning for a good half of the day we had the ruins to oursleves, albeit a few stragglers, so that was a real bonus.
Whilst we where there an awesome rainbow descened over the ruins which made for some awesome pics, i think i took about 220 photos in total! Thank god for the new SLR!

After a sun drenched, boiling hot 4 hours, we decided to walk down the mountain we had previously taken the bus up, which took us just over an hour but our legs felt like it had taken about 5!! The descent was so steep that our thighs were rock hard and pumping by the time we got to the bottom, not good, Natalie commented, for fitting into her skinny jeans late that evening! Mega thighs!!

By the time we got back on the train to Cusco we were kanckered and half asleep but got talking to this really cook Peruvian guy and his Portuguese girlfirend who taught us so much about Peruvian politics, how people in the middle classes really live, how much they earn, all he things you want to know but dont really ever find out as you are just surrounded by the tourist info, or the really poor people when you are backpacking. The best part was when he was telling us about traditonal Peruvian food, i was making him tell me as many dishes as he could and i even think we had a good 10 minute man food chat about how to make good rice.

So with the pinnacle of our visit to Peru already done, we spent the rest of our days shopping for artesans and Natalie has single handedly managed to keep the Cusco artesan economy afloat for a good year or so. Ou bags now weigh somewhere near 20kg, versus the 15kg they were when we left Bolivia and we have enough wooly hats between us to keep a bloody monastry warm for winter. On our last day we visited a town in the Sacred Valley called Pisaq where they have a full on traditional Peruvian market and some of the most amazing veggies and arts and crafts for sales. It is there that i saw just how many different types of potatoe Peru has!! There were loads of them!! All in sacks, all different colours and sizes. Peru has almost 4,000 different types of spud!! Amazing! Kicks ass over the Irish!!

When it came to leave Cusco last night, we were faced with a similar problem of when we arrived. A bloody nightmare! On arrival i only just made it into the country and then we got ripped off paying for a tourist bus, when we actually got shoved onto a local bus. On leaving last night, we had booked a luxury bus for the 17 hour overnight journey to Ica on the coast, only to be told 10 minutes before leaving that the bus wasnt going anymore.....just that, no real explanation, no offer of a refund, just cancelled. I'm like, what the f**k do you mean its cancelled?! There we are, sat in the station no whee to sleep that night, bags ready, a bit cold, and ready to go and they tell us we have no bus. So, with the aid of a Norweigan dude who spoke better Spanish than me, a Peruvian woman with no teeth acting as translator and myself flailing my arms around at the desk, acting like a dick head and creating a bit of a scene, i managed to get us a ticket, albeit with a slight diversion...So, get this....we were due to get a bus, directly west from Cusco to the coast and then up to Lima, like doing an L shape. So it would be like going from London to Reading and then up to Oxford. WHAT we have ended up doing is going 10 hours south to a city called Arequipa, to then do a loop to go 15 hours back north along the coast to Lima. So essentially, in UK terms, its like going from London to Birmingham, via Penzance......and its taking us 26 hours, instead of 17...Yeah!! Brilliant!
BUT, aside from now losing a day, meaning we cant actually stop on the coast, Arequipa is a really, really, really nice city!! We got here at 7am this morning, smelly and tried and only to get our bags from the luggage hold absolutely soaking wet (i threw a paddy at the driver and he just looked right through me and said 'Agua' 'Rain'. I'm like, yes i know its been bloody raining mate but we paid a shed load for these tickets so it shouldnt happen!!! Natalie is like, Chris, chill man, its Peru...She is so right!!) The bus journey was entertaining though...we played Bingo, watched a movie, got given a dry chicken roll and i woke up at 1.20am this morning absolutely boiling, buzzing the emergency help button as the heater thing next to my leg was burning me and chcuking out an insane amount of heat! We also had seats right next to the toilet and so we had to sit in the worst smell for 10 hours. I swear i dreamt about people weeing all night, it stank! Everytime someone went to the loo and opened the door a waft of sticky urine came out and filled our mouths and nostrils. THANK GOD pooing was not allowed on the bus toilet, you had to ask the driver to stop for that.
Its just Peru, its just Peru i keep saying to myself!!

So we have to wait in Arequipa for another 6 hours before we get back on the bus to Lima, where we have a 15 hour journey to Lima where we will spend our last 2 days before heading to LA. Arequipa is surrounded by mountains and has some amazing cathedrals and monastries so i think we are going to head for a stroll, take some pics, get some food and prepare for another mammoth bus ride. This time though we have booked 'bus beds' which are at the FRONT, away from the toilet!!!

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Comments

[Aprilsbigworld]

Hater
Enough, geez, in America, we call you "a total hater". How can you judge a whole country by a group of people, need I remind you, you are in South AMERICA!!! What would be a better hat, maybe one that a "bobbie" wears...? Or the guards in front of the Palace? God save the queen. Or how about a fishing hat so I can keep my tea and crumpets in it? Surely you wouldn't need to pack a toothbrush, so maybe your pack will be lighter than mine! Seems to be your first time traveling outside your element, haha, what your ignorant self does not know is that most Americans speak Spanish, so they wouldn't need to "be a di#@khead, waving my arma around" - Jokes on you, "bloody" Hater. Oh yeah, all the books and sites say to fly within Peru. I will be flying, no stinky "Loo" for this American. If you're still there, you will know it's me, I'll be wearing the white visor! xoxox.