Magical Cusco and the trek to Choquequirao

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Cusco (or Cuzco - they can’t make up their mind how to spell it) has to be one of the best locations I’ve yet been to. High up in the Andes, we decided to fly from Lima as by road the journey takes roughly 24 hours, though I will probably end up doing the bus journey at some point as there’s a lot to see between Lima and Cusco. As Cusco is the tourist hub of the country, as soon as we arrived we were heckled by different agencies, and as one offered us a good hotel deal, we ended up getting a lift into the city centre with them to our hotel, which was nice and clean enough. For our first day in Cusco, we explored the centre, and luckily our hotel was only a 5 minute walk from the Plaza de Armas. Hardly anywhere in the city is flat, and walking from the Plaza back to the hotel was quite a tiring experience as the city is relatively high (3400m above sea level), so walking up hill leaves you temporarily breathless. The main square was stunningly beautiful, with the cathedral and church of La Merced occupying 2 sides, and colonial style buildings filled with restaurants and tourist shops on the other sides. Every time you walk across any part of the plaza, you are always greeted with someone selling massages, which quickly became very annoying. In addition to this, there are many shoe-shine boys in the square and main street offering to polish your shoes; some were quite insistent when they saw how dirty my shoes were. The city is also full to the brim with handicraft and souvenir shops, selling a range of traditional textiles, ceramics, glassware as well as mass-produced imported tack. Most of these shops and stands were quite empty of customers, as with Machu Picchu being shut at the time, the number of tourists in the city was apparently much reduced. As Hannah and I wanted to do a trek, we went round several of the agencies, and once having decided which trek to do (they more or less offer the same options), it was a case of finding the agency we liked the best. We did book the cheapest one we found, but with the hindsight of having done the trip, I can’t see how the more expensive ones could have been better. We had a 2 more days in the city before the trek, so the proceeding day we headed up one of the hills surrounding the city to the Sacsayhuaman fortress, but as the entrance fee was as steep as the hill to get there, and as we hadn’t bought the Cusco tourist card which allows entry to all attractions (but would have cost a lot bearing in mind we were only in the city for 2 days), we ended up being persuaded by a person selling horse riding tours to different ruins. The price was cheap, and the 2 hour journey was good fun. The horses basically knew the route, so having little or no experience was not an issue, though my horse at one point tried to go through a barbed wire fence, which got caught up on my shoe and was rather painful for a minute. The journey ended at the unspectacular ruins of the Temple of the Moon, but the scenery around was absolutely stunning. To get back to the city, we then had to negotiate a very muddy and boggy track, but this was worth is to reach the large statue of Christ (Cristo Blanco), which overlooks the city. An indigenous man offered to have his photo taken with us for free and then tried to sell us his cds, though he was friendly enough even when we declined. Back in the city, Hannah wanted her photo taken with one of the many indigenous women who pose with a llama for a small fee, though the woman we found wasn’t particularly friendly and kept asking for more money, and didn’t even look at the camera when the photo was taken. Though posing for tourists’ photos can’t exactly be a fun life. We then did some shopping as we were told to bring some snacks for the trek, and we ended up with an enormous bag of giant-sized popcorn for 40p which we never did finish. For our last day in Cusco, we had arranged a tour of the Sacred Valley, though the description from the tour agency didn’t exactly meet with reality. We were supposed to spend time in one of the large traditional markets in a town outside the city, but this was omitted from the tour. The scenery throughout the day was very picturesque, and after a buffet lunch at a traditional restaurant, we ended up at Ollantaytambo, an Inca settlement on the path to Machu Picchu, which turned out to be a rather fascinating place. Surrounded on mountains on all four sides, except for the Ollantaybambo river valley which cuts its way through, the views from the top of the site were breathtaking. Or maybe that was just because we were so high up and had just climbed a steep hill. After Ollantaybambo, the tour stopped off at a traditional textile workshop, where they explained how traditional Andean textiles were made and coloured, before we browsed the handicrafts fair on site. The tour overran somewhat, so we didn’t get back to Cusco until 8:20 in the evening, even though we were supposed to be meeting our guide for the trek at 7:30, but someone from the agency stayed behind to tell us the arrangements for the following morning.
So the following day we were met by our guide just after 5 in the morning, and after having picked up the rest of the group, which consisted of an American girl, a Swedish girl and a German guy, our minibus set off on the 4 hour journey to Cachora, the town from where we would depart on the trek. We were heading to the 15th century Inca citadel of Choquequirao, which means Cradle of Gold in Quechua (the language of the Incas, still spoken widely today). The 64km trek lasted 4 days and involved descending down the Apurimac river valley, crossing the river, then climbing 1750m up the other side to the ruins. The first day was probably the easiest; we set off after an early lunch, heading mostly downhill to the first night’s camp at the 19km mark. The following day proved to be the most challenging. Getting up at 4:30 to set off before sun rise did not feel natural. After 45 minutes of walking down to the bridge over the valley, the sun rose, though thanks to the dense mist and light rain we were unable to see the top of the hill on the other side of the river which we were about to climb. The zigzag paths seem to go on forever, and due to the mist we didn’t even have a good view as we climbed. We managed to get to the summit in a few hours, nearby to which was our campsite, but after lunch we continued for another 2 hours to get to the actual site. The ruins themselves were not what I was expecting. Bearing in mind that the site is 6 times the size of Machu Picchu, I was expecting something grander than the ruins which greeted us. But this site hasn’t been fully excavated so very little is visible to visitors; mostly the central square and surrounding buildings. Much more authentic than Machu Picchu apparently, and definitely considerable quieter (with only about 15 people on the site compared to up to 3,000 people a day at Machu Picchu). Luckily the mist cleared up during our visit meaning we could actually see the site properly, and the views on all four sides were spectacular. On the way back down to the campsite we walked with a rather tired but cheerful Welsh lady who was regretting coming on the trek; as we were going quite slowly we didn’t make it back to camp until after sunset (walking in the dark through on muddy slopes with only a feeble torch was not fun). We were all very tired bearing in mind we had been walking from before sunrise to after sunset with only a 1 hour break at lunch and a few shorter breaks. Coming down the hill on the third day was fun, especially meeting people half way up and realising you don’t have to climb that hill again. The rest of the third and fourth days were mostly up hill, but nothing as bad as the second day. As we had a cook travelling with us as well as our guide and a horseman looking after the 3 mules, we ate quite well during the trek, but I think everyone was fed up with the quinoa soup and all the rice by the end of the trek. When we got back to Cachora we were told that there was a strike and that the only road back to Cusco would be shut, which really took the shine off of finishing the trek. In the end we learned that the strike was not on, but we had to leave sharply to get past a set of roadworks as the road to Cusco would only be open for 1 hour that day during lunchtime. Even though we got past these roadworks during the hour the road was open, the road was shut further down, so we had to wait 3 hours for it to reopen, along with many other impatient motorists. And the road is actually the main Cusco-Lima road, so it seemed bizarre for roadworks to have shut it in two different places and with no window where you can get through both sets until 5pm. We did eventually get back to Cusco, where it was a delight to sleep in a bed instead of a tent, and without having to get up ridiculously early the next morning. The next day we had a night bus booked for the city of Nasca, leaving us most of the day to relax and do some souvenir shopping at the markets before catching our bus. Will write about our journey from Nasca back to Lima in the next entry.

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Photos

The worrying coloured Inca Kola
Turns out this is a product of the Coca Cola Company, as are most soft drinks over here.