Day 56 - Travelling First Class

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Our lovely hotel receptionist had gone to the bus station the previous night to buy our tickets to Cusco, but upon boarding the top deck of the bus it seemed our seat numbers did not exist. After a few minutes of mumbling and grumbling, we were escorted downstairs to the first class section where our seats belonged - we had a 16 seat cabin to ourselves! With tons of leg room and no bag security worries. All for 5 pounds! Bless our hotel man! Unfortunately the bus company (San Luis) turned a 6 hour journey into an 8 hour one by making stops in every town along the way, which also meant the golden silence of our first class carriage was broken by a few families joining us halfway. Another pleasant surprise was our triple room in our Cusco hostel - it was spread over two floors and actually had 4 beds!

Taryn, who had already spent some time in Cusco, then guided us around the 3 main plazas - all with beautifully maintained greens complete with fountains and flowers - and imposing colonial churches and cathedrals. It is a beautiful city and would not be out of place in Europe. The one downside is the number and persistence of the street sellers and restaurant touts - stand still for a second and your are surrounded. Folders of artwork, postcards, all manner of alpaca knitwear, jewellery, finger puppets, nags, tourist information and massages! Definitely offered about 50 massages a day - you say no to one person and yet someone within earshot will ask you immediately after. The shops lining the plazas are another story however - I vowed to return to Cusco with a lot of money and an empty suitcase to fill with paintings, jewellery, sculptures... all inspired by Inca culture and designs and all rather out of our price range.

We found one of the cheaper tourist menus on the Plaza de Armas, with a balcony overlooking the cathedral, square and mountains behind. Here we tried alpaca for the first time, delicious! Better than llama and much healthier apparently! After ice cream for dessert we headed for an early night, still emotionally drained from the previous day's events.

Chris's Corner

It's such a challenge trying to decide between night bus and day bus, saving a night's accommodation or losing a day but getting to a place not feeling knackered. With a 6 hour bus you don't really have a choice as you'd arrive at your destination at 2-4 in the morning and still have to pay for accommodation! The luxury of first class at least for the beginning bit was great, no other people and bags safely behind us. I did see at one point though a bag get stolen from the main hold as someone opened the compartment at traffic lights and ran off with one. The assistant driver noticed and ran after but to no avail. Probably a bag of rice or blankets... Peruvian favourite for luggage. Luckily ours were first on and buried at the back so back to relaxing in our first class luxury.

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Photos

Paddington Bear!
Never worked out what he was actually doing...