Peru and the Machu Picchu farse...

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Having successfully escaped death on the most dangerous road on earth, finished our tour with gap and exhausted la paz, we were on our own and decided to move onwards towards the town of Puno in Lima. Having no idea at all about Peru except a few pointers from Joe and Angela, and some randoms we met along the travels so far we headed on for Puno which was breaking up the journey to Cusco, where Machu Picchu was located. Another long bus journey and border check came and went and we arrived the following morning to what looked like a festival going on in the city. It was coming down with old women in trilbies and platted hair, young girls dressed in traditional costumes and mean wearing flared trousers and masks. Puno hadn’t made much of an impression on any of us and it wasn’t long before we’d booked to leave the next evening to get to Cusco to hopefully spend as much time as possible before having to leave for our flight. At this time there were torrential downpours in Peru and mud slides in Machu Picchu and it didn’t look likely that we’d see it.

We got ‘the hell out of that shit hole’ in the eloquent words of McCarry and headed onwards to Cusco. We arrived in the city and checked into a small hostal/hotel near the main square. We took a walk round the town and found a pizza place which would become the restaurant of choice 90% of the time spent in the town over the next week, and Mully also found his wife to be, a waitress called Evett. This obsession would rival those of even Cheuk proportions in his eyes and kept bringing him back again and again, eventually leaving his facebook address when she wasn’t there.

We all had been apprehensive about the state of Machu Picchu and been quietly optimistic about getting up to see it, having spoken to the hotels travel woman about going and being promised that it would be possible. This was something that I had looked forward to from the minute I booked the trip and was eager to go. We all paid money to get on a ‘special’ tour of it that was only allowing a certain number of people up. We had been told to get up and be ready for 5 am the Saturday after we arrived and that we would be collected and driven as far up as possible and then have to walk over two days to get up and down again, which seemed totally worth it as we had expected that anyway. Everyone headed to sleep round 11 thinking we could sleep on the bus if necessary and set alarms to get us up. 5 am arrived and we were ready and waiting but no bus. 6 am arrived and no bus. 7.30 am arrived and still no bus…you can see where this is going. At around 1 pm the travel woman arrived at the hotel to tell us that there had been a few problems and to wait a while longer. 5 pm arrived and she arrived back to tell us that we weren’t going anymore and that we could wait for another tour in a few days if we wanted. Surprisingly no one was best pleased with her and she got the bollocking of a lifetime about the mess that was the organised tour and the bullshit we had naively believed. We demanded our money back and headed off huffing just to get out of the hotel. It led us to a mountain top horse ride where Kevin ‘The Lone Ranger’ McCarry tried his best and eventually got thrown off his horse, Ciaran ‘porker’ Lenehan was given a malnourished horse that suffered a bowed back under the weight of him, Ciaran ‘My horse is like Berbatov’ Mullan ended up switching horses to ride mine who shared a personality with Jack Nicholson in the shining and I all went on a set of flea bitten, run down horses round ruins of a pagan temple. It sounds very like Indiana Jones, but, unsurprisingly it wasn’t. After our not so epic adventure we got some pictures of the Christ statue and headed off back to the hotel. Our days in Cusco consisted of very little and we spent our nights out in all of the bars and clubs afterwards usually ending up buying the homeless kids micky d’s only for them to turn their noses up as they didn’t want happy meals…turns out beggars can be choosers.

We ended up leaving Cusco earlier than we thought but wanted to see a bit of Lima before we had to head off again and without Machu Picchu open we thought best to move onwards, although it was one of the best places we stayed in South America. A 26 hour bus journey loomed and we had splashed out on first class seats but lenny was still convinced he wouldn’t sleep on the bus so I suggested getting some sleeping pills and going halfers. 6 diazapan each and 24 hours later we arrived in Lima.

We headed to Miraflores which was the recommended place to stay in Lima by everyone we met. Stayed in a hugely overpriced hostal that night and decided the next day to leave to find somewhere cheaper. We spend the next morning checking out cheap hostals and finally settled on the cheapest of the lot and settled into our room. Lima hadn’t been highly praised by anyone who we’d met on the trip but I actually thought it was pretty cool. Over the next few days we explored and headed out to the bar strip where everyone loved and the women loved us more for some reason…apparently gringos are irresistible to the Lima girls, proof of which was Mr Lenehan and his antics on a couple of occasions. Myself and Lenny had gotten back into the Thailand swing of things and were drinking heavily for night outs. One night Lenny pulled a fine looking girl brought her back to the hostal, somehow got her in to the room convinced me to leave while he ‘ahem’, got up to know good with his “friend”. Imagine my surprise when the manageress came bursting in through the front door as I tried to sleep in the common area of the hostal going into our room and dragging the girl out by the hair and throwing her out onto the street shouting angrily in spanish at her. Turned out the girl was a lady of the night and had fooled our young explorer. The story had a ‘happy ending’ though, as Lenny didn’t get chucked out of the hostal and he added to his already unwashed rancid, sullied gusset (is that enough superlatives lenny?). The following night Lenny got so drunk that he pissed himself, luckily for us it was enough to change his shorts…but for some reason not clean them!

The end of the week approached and we met up with the boys again down the street of bars on the Wednesday night. We all enjoyed the night and thought on the Thursday that we should say adios to Lima with one last night even though our flight left early the next morning. I set my alarm to ensure we were up by 6.00 am plenty of time to catch our flight. Lenny and myself arrived back at bout 4.30/5 am and went straight to bed, not packing our bags as we would have plenty of time in the morning. I awoke at 8.30 as someone banged a hammer outside our bedroom door. White fear hit me as we were gonna miss our flight and we had slept in through the alarm, the first time I had done so on the trip! Me, Lenny and McCarry set about throwing our stuff into our bag as Mully said see you later and left without us panicking about the thought of a 72 hour bus trip to Buenos Aires. We finally got out of the room and got a taxi, actually passed mully and arrived at the airport with minutes to the gate closing. Ran through customs and arrived at the terminal while the rest of the passengers queued patiently. I was in shock, out of breath and pissed off as I had manage to leave half the stuff in my bag at the hostal never to be seen again. It transpired, however, that McCarry had arrived in at 6, heard my alarm and turned it off so he could get some sleep. Not his brightest idea but luckily for all of us we made the flight and it was onwards to Buenos Aires and a rapidly approaching flight home from Rio.

Peru was incredible, with friendly people and even more awe inspiring sights. It was a rollercoaster of a visit with huge disappointment coupled with great nights out and memorable places however few there was that we visited. A 5 hour flight and we were to arrive in Buenos Aires which had been quoted as the party city of South America…it would turn out to be brief though as Carnival was calling us to Brazil.

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Comments

[Heather]

I really enjoyed your post about Machu Picchu, etc. It reminded me of my own trip to Peru, and how amazing it was. I also really like Lima, even though it gets a bad reputation. My blog is looking for travel reviews (like your overpriced hostel!), photos, etc, to share. If you have the time, check it out at dirty-hippies.blogspot.com, or email us at [e-mail]. If you're still traveling around, or if you know anyone who is interested, my blog is also giving away a free night in Peru or Bolivia. Continued fun on your travels! Heather :)