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Published: April 5th 2005
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I arrived in Cusco at 7 am on Saturday morning from Lima, and my cab from the airport came complete with a tour agent who recommended a hostel with private bath for about $6 a night. It doesn´t have any windows, but the price is great and the guy who runs it is very friendly without being overly attentive, so I´m pretty happy with it. After I checked in, the innkeeper went to make me mate de coca (a tea made with coca leaves that helps prevent altitude sickness) and the tour agent sat me down to plan out my week. It was about 7:30 in the morning, and I´d been up since four, so I was in no mood to argue with her. I let her give me a plan and her agency´s prices, and decided to check around before booking.
After breakfast, updating my travelblog, and a little time wandering around the city, I stopped by the SAE clubhouse in Cusco to see if they had any information about her agency or other recommendations. They´d never heard of her and thought her price for the Inca Trail was too low (apparently, anything under $200 means they´re cutting corners
on either your food or the porters pay....both of which can lead to a bad experience). Instead, they recommended two groups, of which I chose the option that was both cheaper and included an optional free night in the porter´s village, which I´ve heard is a great experience, and which should show that this agency treats its staff well. I also decided to use the other recommended agency for a tour of the sacred valley on Sunday (since there´s not much going on in Cusco on a Sunday anyway).
A few hours later, news hit Cusco that the Pope had died. The church bells in the main square began to toll and mourners wandered in and out of the churches all evening. I went into a church on the main square for a few moments, but opted for dinner over mass. Radio programs discussing the Pope´s special relationship with Latin America, and his place in the hearts of Peruvians, were playing everywherere, including the restaraunt where I had dinner. I couldn´t help thinking of Rome, and of how my orphanage would take the news.
After an early dinner, I went to an Irish pub and caught a bit
of the Illinois game with the only other American in the place, before realizing that I was dead tired and heading back to my hotel. By the way, I came in second in my March Madness pool this year - only lost by two points. I blame Wake Forest.
Sunday morning, the main sqaure was set up for some sort of funereal ceremony honoring the the Pope, but I had to catch a tour bus to the Sacred Valley. I went with SAS travel and they promised a less market-focused tour than some of the others, although I can´t a imagine how much more market time you could squeeze into the day. We saw at least four, and by the end all the crafts looked the same.
The best part of the day was by far the ruins. We went to Pisaq, Urubamba, Ollantaytambo, and Chichero. The ruins at Pisaq and Ollantaytambo were easily the most interesting of the day. Both were sites of temples to the sun, and Pisaq is also home tho the largest Incan Cemetary (the graves look like little caves on a mountainside). In Ollantaytabo, the Incans carved the face of God on the
side of a mountain that they used to gauge the calendar year (the shadow of the sun comes from each side for exactly six months - changing with th solstices).
We got back to Cusco around dark and I grabbed dinner with a British girl I met on the bus, then booked a whitewater rafting trip for the next day. The American guy I´d met the night before said it was some of the best he´d ever experienced, so I decided to give it a shot.
The agency was booked for the upper river, so I had to settle for class I - III rapids. It was great though, and I´d definitely go back to do the upper river if I had another day here. The rafting group specializes in tours for Israeli groups, so there were about three boats of young Israelis on the lowere river and two boats for the rest of us. I ended up in a boat with three Danes (two guys ad a girl) who spoke no Spanish, had never been rafting before, and couldn´t row to save their lives. I ended up translating for the guide a lot because they were having
trouple with his Spanish-accented English, and he was running out of ways to explain the importanc of rowing harder in the rapids. When we stopped on the riverbank for a break, he moved me and the girl up to the front to see if that might help. It seemed to at first, but then half the boat fell in the water and the girl came back into the boat shocked and sobbing. She recovered pretty quickly, though, and they were all happy with the experience in the end. Afterwards, we all had a sauna, a hot shower, and big lunch at the river base camp, and I got to know the some of the rest of the group pretty well, even ended up hanging out with some of the Brits for the evening when we got back to Cusco.
Today, I slept in (finally) and did a little shopping and took in the Inca museum, as well as a few errands to prepare for the Inca Trail and my return. I´ve heard the second day is pretty rough, but I´m looking forward to it none the less.
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