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Published: January 19th 2013
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After my plans to head south after New Years suddenly changed and I had a week to kill before meeting up with friends in Buenos Aires I decided to high tail it up to Cusco to catch up with a friend that I made earlier on in my travels. Flying direct from Santiago to Cusco was going to cost a fortune so I decided to fly from Santiago to Arica which is the most northern town of Chile, cross the boarder, catch a 6 hour bus to Arequipa and then fly from there to Cusco the following morning. Well that was the plan - until my alarm didn't go off in Arequipa and I woke up half an hour after I was meant to leave for the airport.
I am not sure how knowledgable you are about the bus systems over here, but basically there are different class levels. Classic is the basic bus seat - good for short journeys, but anything over three hours and it is going to result in back/knee pain. At the other end of the scale there is cama. Cama not only lets you recline almost all the way back, but the foot
rest comes up so that you also get fairly decent leverage. Usually the cama level is the bottom of the bus and there are only nine seats so it is quite spread out - more than 15 hours on the bus and this is where you want to be in life. In the middle of these two is semi-cama. There are four per row and usually the seat reclines a little and there is a smallish leg rest to help ease the stiffness. When I missed my flight to Cusco and needed to catch a bus to get there I was more focused on actually getting there than the quality of seat that I was getting. Rooky error.
The 12 hour bus ride to Cusco was the worst of my travels thus far. I am not quite sure what you would classify the seat as. It wasn't classic because the seat did recline, but it most certainly was not semi-cama as when I reclined my seat, it scooted forwards and jammed my knees into the seat in front of me. Damn tallness. The lady next to me also had a 7 year old daughter who sat on
her lap and stared at me consistently for the first 4 hours. I would open my eyes from a nap and she would just be looking at me. It was like she had never seen a tall, freckly, red haired white girl before in her life. By hour 7 I had a new seat companion. We were approaching a bus stop and there were people queuing in the aisle waiting to get off. All of a sudden a wet liquid splashes all over my legs and feet. I look around to see who spilt their drink and see a 16 year old boy standing there looking very queazy. While I processed the thought of what was really on my feet, he leant over and all I can hear around me is people yelling "amigo, amigo! En el bolsar en el bolsar". Which translates to "friend, friend, in the bag, in the bag!". Yes, that is right. I had been vomited on!!
Within my first half an hour at the Loki hostel where James was working in Cusco I was introduced to blood bombs. They line up all the glasses of red bull in a row, balance the
shot glasses on the bridge between the two glasses and fill them with vodka and red cordial. Then they get a big tiki torch and light the shots on fire. As they tip the first shot into the glass and start the domino affect the flames go all over the bar and you are left with a drink that is warm and red like blood. Apparently the Loki holds the record for the longest blood bomb train of 403 blood bombs. I would not have liked to be the cleaning staff following that night thats for sure!
As James was sick and I copped textbook altitude sickness I didn't really see a lot of the sites around Cusco. I figured that I would leave it until I return in March and manage to get a handle on the altitude. We did however venture out between bursts of freezing rain (such a climate change from sunny Chile!) to what all the gringos refer to as Sexy Woman - which actually has nothing to do with a woman at all (They're Inca Ruins), but more so because it is spelt Sacsaywaman so it kind of sounds the same. It
was pretty good to see and had amazing views of Cusco as well as the standard "oh look a hill, lets put a giant Jesus, cross or Virgin Mary on it" phenomenon that seems to have happened all over South America (in this case there was a cross AND Jesus combo! What a treat.).
Aside from random ventures into town between buckets of rain, I spent a lot of time at the Loki. It really is like its own little community in there, especially with a bar that serves meals too. They had a different themed night every night (toga party, 80's night, gladiator sticks) which was amusing and there were always tonnes of people around as they were at capacity most of the time that I was there which is a mere 260 guests. It is however the kind of place though that you shouldn't stay at for more than a week as your body/liver will not thank you for it. It was sad to leave the Loki and the friends that I had there. I guess goodbyes are always part of the package when you're travelling, and when you think about it, spending a week
with someone really isn't even that long. But when you are around these people 24/7 for that week you'd be surprised just how well you get to know them.
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