Happy Birthday to Me!

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January 1st 2013

Published: January 1st 2013

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DavidJGrinter

Cusco

Plaza de Armas at night

As is becoming a recurring theme in Peru, the woman in the ticket office at Ayacucho, hadn't listened to us. Peruvian's want to be helpful, but often they just seem to decide upon what you've said and then hear that, not what you actually asked! It's pretty frustrating. Because of this, we expected to be in Cusco by 5pm, we ended up in Andahuaylas at this time, after on of the most breathtaking journies ever it must be added, and still had a further 8 hours to come on our journey. We eventually arrived in to Cusco at 4am (we left at 8pm or so), the ticket woman told us the time for the wrong city! Estupido. But anyway, we got here, the Incan capital, tucked away in a lush (not in a Gavin and Stacy way) valley in south east Peru. It's a striking place. Some people complain about Cusco's lack of idenity or something, I don't get that. It is what it is, and Ican city, which the Spanish built on top of. Consquently, the bases of many builidngs are Incan, typified by interlocking stones with no cement and slanting walls (earthquake proof) and topped by colonial work. It's

The Stroke

Happy Birthday!

unique and, I think, cool. As an aside, if you say each letter of socks (S.O.C.K.S) in English, you almost prfectly say "it is what it is" in Spanish...no need to thank me for that.

So, anyway, Cusco is quite pleasant to walk around, looking at buildings and stuff, but less so for having people trying to sell you stuff. That's frustrating, they're persistant too. I've never been offered so many massages or meals that I didn't want. Ray Bans for $1 anyone? Not fake either...honest! It's that grinding touristy crap that makes Cusco a bit annoying, plus everyone tries to rip you off, you really need to shop around. I wanted a guidebook for Machu Picchu, they are about S/20 but some people were quoting me nearer 30 and then instantly dropping the price! Scandalous. I ended up not buying one. But as always the market is good value for fruit juices, and food, just watch out for pickpockets. I'd heard one of the markets has lots of clothing at cheap prices, but I'm thinking it's probably fake or stolen, but have no evidence to back this up. There's a free walking tour of the city

Sacsayhuaman

Cusco in the background

(from Plaza Regocijo at 12pm) which was okay, but felt like one huge advert for businesses with a bit of history thrown in. We did get snacks which was cool, but their pub crawl sounded like a better option. Also, the day we did it the rain was relentless so that may have influenced my more negative appraisal of the tour. We did find a good restaurant from it (Bambu - Japanese influenced food) so it couldn't be all bad.

Talking of food, and you know I like to, Cusco has a phenominal choice of restaurants. We tried Fuego on the plaza twice, once for it's BBQ and once for my birthday and the their burgers (the Stroke, S/28, 2 burgers with every imaginable extra and chips, is awesome) and the quality of food and service were excellent. Another night we headed to Incazeula for another meal and again it was spectacular; the service and the food. They make these stews which are packed full of flavours, just luxuriously wonderful and not that expensive really, about £6 a meal. The street and cafe food (sandwiches at Paulina's are not to be missed) are great too. Try and

Qengo

Just an odd place...

sample the Cuenca wheat beer if you can and drink the Brown Ale at Norton's Bar, it is a real treat.

We stayed in Hostal Wara Wara, near the an Cristobal church, a lung busting climb with bags from the plaza or an easy taxi journey. The views are spectacular and the whole place has a real homely feel. Miguel and Viviana are new to the hostelling business but are just so spectacularly lovely and wonderful you'll want to stay here longer (we almost stayed for Christmas). Miguel loves to cook and whipped up a fantastic quinoa and chicken risotto. On the Sunday we had free beers and pisco sours from their bar (Viviana's Sours are something special) and jsut hung out and chatted. That was cool, especially as another guest, Camille (a wine expert from France) was there too and great to talk to. I probably liked staying here as much as visiting Cusco itself! The music was very cool too, I've found a new genre that I'm fascinated with, Bossa Nova.

However, I'm aware that I should probably start telling you about what we did here. We did a lot of stuff.

Tambo Machay

The Incas were an advanced civilisation, acquaducts and baths attest to that...even if they didn't invent the wheel, arch or literacy

There are Incan ruins all over the place, you can't move for them, they almost get in the way! Not really, but there are many ruins to visit. You have to buy a ticket to all the ruins in the Sacred Valley (I'll come to this in a bit) which seems pretty steep at S/130 (about 35 of our dear English Pounds) but considering it covers about 20 sites isn't too bad. We walked from Tambo Machay (taxi to there after disasterous failure to find the collectivio) back to Cusco (7km) via 4 or 5 different ruins. Qenqo was pretty wierd, a bunch of tunnels, steps and altars carved in to the exposed rock above Cusco. Then it was on the the famous citadel of Sacsayhuaman. Younger backpackers get excited by this one as the name sounds a bit like "sexy women" when said aloud, apparently some mistakenly call it "sexy mama" which is apparently funny, but I'm not so sure. But Sacsayhuman is awesome. The site towers above Cusco and apparenty formed the head of the puma, which was the original city plan (Cusco formed the body), except said plan doesn't look like a Puma so I can only

Pisac

Green...wet

surmise that the Incas, or possibly the historians making such claims, were on drugs. The buildings are still standing here, no rooves obviously, and the Spanish nicked all the gold and half the stone, but it's still impressive. The building work is incredible, no cement and each block fits perfectly with the others around it, and no two blocks are the same. It's striking and mindboggling. Plus the views are cool. There are stewards with whistles watching over the place, step out of line by walking somewhere naughty and you'll get a good whistling at, nothing more, just a whistle...well maybe a finger wagging. It's all very cordial and almost British...in Brazil and Bolivia museum guards had automatic pistols! Imagine that, you step over the velvet rope and take a slug to the cranium! Steven Segal probably set up the museum guard service in the those countries, it's the only logical explanation.

But again, I digress. So, um, Sacred Valley. Okay. The Sacred Valley was probably the most spectacular valley I've ever been to, and I'm from Wales and we know how to do vallies...as anyone who has been to Merthyr will attest...I kid, Merthyr is not

Sacred Valley

So sacred you can almost smell it!

a place many people attached to their ears should visit, even my Gran would say that and she grew up there. Anyway, we went to Pisac, which is nothing like Merthyr, on one of those organised tour things, which are just frustrating. We spent longer in bloody markets than at the ruins, which is a sad indictment of many tourist's priorities. But Pisac's ruins are pretty epic. They sit on the top of a jagged hill, with a huge run of terraces (for food in the old days) sprawling below them, and tombs of the people who once lived here hovering above them on the next hill. It rained a lot and we only had an hour here, but it was a wonderful place. The other stop that was interesting was Ollantaytambo, the town with my most favourite name. This was one of the last places that the Incas took a stand against the Spanish. They also won the first round by destroying a dam and flooding the bastards! But money, guns and horses beat potatoes and stones and alas history played out. But the ruins here have bathing pools and intricate waterways, plus a series of brutal terraces and

Ollantaytambo

Inca windows!

a wonderful cliff hugging path which offers a spectacular view of the ruins. We nearly missed the bus as we wandered ahead of the very slow group, went to far, waited for them and then realised they were going home without us! If we had our time again, we'd be doing this under our own steam, organised tours are just too frustrating and annoying.

The real reason anyone comes here is to see Machu Picchu. We decided to do the Inca Trail months ago, you need to book in advance. It's a 40km trek to Machu and it's a fantastic experience. It's costly at US$500 per person, but getting a bus to the gates isn't much of a challenge. Our group was 14 strong and all the guys and girls were very cool. Ellie, one of the Aussies, was very unwell, but battled against the illness, common sense and doctor's (Ellie's) advice to complete the trek, suggesting that Australian women are bloody hard! It was great craic from the off. Our resident Kiwi, JP, was a bit mental and an eating machine (steak and chips for breakfast!) and always up for laughs, it helped that our guides

Ruins on the Inca Trail

I forget their names, but I ran up those steps, which was a massive mistake.

were too. We pretty much laughed for 4 days, inbetween catching our breath at altitudes reaching 4200m. Ellie spent a lot of time making sure other Ellie didn't die so I walked a lot with Johnny, an English guy who loves running up and down mountains and two American lawyers, Ellen and Kristen. Kristen worked for Obama in the elections, which is probably the coolest job going for anyone I personally know. Except the 100 hour weeks. I couldn't do that, it would mean and increase in 100 hours from the amount of work I currently do in a standard week. Also isn't law boring?? Psychology is way more interesting. I'll do that perhaps when I get back, unless Obama calls in the meantime.

We were accompanied by porters who carried our food and tents. They flew over the terrain, it was incredible. They also loved a practical joke or two. One loosened the top of the black pepper just before I used it on my soup, he even waited around to see the results, cheeky git. As it was my birthday on the final day, they made me a cake, then slammed my face into it.

Inca Tunnel

It's important to remember that everything here should be prefixed with Inca to make it any good.

There were others, but generally we all bonded by taking the piss out of everyone else. The rain didn't bother us, and it rained a lot, because the scenary was so varied and spectacular, when the rain clouds lifted, the views were unrivalled by anything else on the planet. Seeing is believing, I hope the photos here do it justice. If not, don't be lazy and do the trek yourself. Our group went at different paces, but we all met up at different points and helped each other out when we could. I don't think anyone felt pressured or frustrated and our guides were great. Even the porters seemed to be happy enough, which can't be said for all the tour groups. Exploitation still goes on despite the new rules so choose the tour group carefully...and I'll stop preaching now!

On our last day we woke up stupidly early to wait for the trail to commence, myself, the Aussies (Ellie and Lochtie) and JP played cards to while away the time. But then we were on our way, the final couple of kms to Machu Picchu. The weather was poor and there was no visibility. Once we

Augusto

Our slightly mental guide...

got to the sun gate we could see nothing (you sould be able to see the ruins) but by the time we reached the city itself the cloud was lifting. This gradual revealing of the ruins was eerie but also dramatic. Gradually, new buildings or plazas would be unveiled until the sun finally broke through and the whole vista was gloriously illuminated before us. Yes, it's just rocks, but it's so untouched you could almost move in there. It was just spectacular. Words don't do it justice so I won't even try, but it was probably the best birthday present ever!

We spent the afternoon in a pub in Aguas Caliente. JP and I drank rather more heavily than the others. Johnny had nearly killed himself climbing Wayu Picchu (the mountain behind the ruins) due to pushing himself so hard. He fell asleep in the pub. The drinking continued on the train and bus journey home and I was rather drunk by the end of it all, and losing very heavily at "Arsehole" despite being well ahead at one point. All in all, it was a great birthday, spent with great people in a unique place. I