Advertisement
We picked up a taxi to Colegio Medico on the other side of Cusco where we met some of the other students from
Excel. Luis, one of the
Profesors de Español turned up a little after 8am apologising profusely for being late.
We crossed the road to the bus terminal & skipped the first bus going our way as there was already people crammed into the aisles. The second bus left only moments later & came with a girl with a very hoarse voice who gave out sweets & then came round to say the sweets were six for one sol. Luckily we didn't take a handful. I was sitting next to Luis & we tried to converse in Spanish. It ultimately ended up being a conversation about football as most conversations in South America are. When he asked if Liverpool FC were from London & I told him they were from Liverpool, he replied that would make more sense.
The bus journey took us downhill from Cusco (Alt: 3400m) to the ruins of Pikillacta about 32km away where we got out on the side of the road & walked to the entrance. There was a newly built museum which currently
only holds the skeletal remains of an armadillo type dinosaur called a glynteradon which was presumably unearthed at the site. Pilkillacta itself is a vast area where the remains of a pre-Inca towns built by the Wari people in about AD 1100. Pikillacta means
The Place of The Flea & there are two tales of its origin, the first being that the Wari whilst living in such close proximity often had fleas, the second that they very small & compared to fleas. Most of Pikillacta has been covered by rubble from the surrounding mountains during seismic activity & UNESCO have been clearing the overlying earth & restoring the site.
We walked through the streets of Pikillacta as Luis explained how the Wari may have lived in the small towns. We climbed the nearby hill which even after the altitude training done in Cusco, left us short of breath. From the top the whole of Pikillacta could been seen along with nearby towns & all the surrounding mountains. The view was great & an excellent place to eat lunch although the midday sun was beating down on us.
After lunch we precariously climbed/slid down the hill as we didn't follow the same path as going up. Under covers put up by the conservationists was the remains of the dwellings of Pikillacta's boss or
hefe. The house had been built from the surrounding rocks then covered in earth & finally covered in a layer of chalk mined from the nearby mountains. This would have given the house a white colour inside & out & made it stand out on the hillside. The house had two floors & the lower part of the upper floor was still visible even after 900 years.
We crossed the road & visited Rumicolca, an Incan viaduct built on existing Wari structures. The Incan masonry was flawless, every stone fitting almost seamlessly with the next. It had been built because an Incan ruler had a beautiful daughter & was receiving many requests to marry her. The leader decided that if someone could build a structure that could carry water from the other side of the mountain then they could marry his daughter. A general built the viaduct & included a bridge (no longer in existence) so that the neighbouring Wari could pass through. We precariously climbed to the top via a number of protruding stones covering ourselves in red dust only to find that there were some perfectly good steps on the other side. Luis didn't tell us this.
We walked back to the road & sat down until we flagged down a passing bus & squeezed in at the back, knees under chins with kids continuously staring at us. Back in Cusco a taxi stopped in front of us, but not looking too official & with cracks in the windscreen we gave it a miss & crossed over the road to get one going the other way. All the taxi driver did was turn around & we ended up catching it any way.
In the Plaza De Armas we had coffee overlooking the square surrounded by panpipers until it was time to walk back up the exhausting hill to
Loki Backpackers where there was a sign on the door saying to go to the reception. We had been told that we couldn't keep the same room for the duration of our time in Cusco & it was time to move. The new room, however, wasn't directly under the bar & was a lot quieter.
Dinner was at a vegetarian restaurant where a three course meal cost about 60p & included coca leaf tea that supposedly helps with the altitude.
We waited by the fountain in the Plaza to see if anyone else was around & then Sam,
Ges & I headed to
Fallen Angel for some Saturday night expensive cocktails in ultra kitsch surroundings including flying pigs & bathtub tables filled with fish.
Drink of the Day: Maté de Coca
Advertisement
Tot: 0.118s; Tpl: 0.008s; cc: 7; qc: 24; dbt: 0.05s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1mb