Cusco: Like Asia, but more South American

---

Before we could indulge in our Machu Picchu swansong, we first had to negotiate a trans-continental flight from Buenos Aires to Lima, and a flight across the Andes from Lima to Cuzco. A quirk of the airlines booking system meant that it was actually cheaper for us to fly from Buenos Aires to Lima to Cuzco than it was just to fly from Buenos Aires to Lima ... add this to the fact that the trip from Lima to Cuzco was either a 21 hour bus journey or an hour long flight, and you can see why despite our ever increasing carbon footprint it was a pretty easy choice! The ‘minor’ hitch with this plan was that it involved spending another night sleeping (or not, as was the case) in an airport (Lima this time). So after our long and dull flight from Buenos Aires to Lima (only one film to watch, and it was very, very bad) we rocked up in Lima airport at 8pm, with a flight out to Cuzco at 6am. Bleurgh.

After hanging around the food court area for far too long, we eventually went to check in for our flight to Cusco just after 3 in the morning, neither of us were very awake. As soon as I sat down on the plane, I fell asleep but unfortunately this flight took less than an hour so I only managed to get a short sleep, but it was enough to keep me going for a short while. Matt didn’t sleep much on that flight and we were both awake for the landing, which poor Matt found a bit scary. As it was a short flight, the plane, upon descent seemed to be flying diagonally downwards and heading towards a lot of mountains. It was unbelievable that there was a gap in the mountains big enough to be a big enough runway for the plane to land on but everything went smoothly and we landed safely. Cusco is at a high altitude (nearly three and a half thousand metres) and therefore the air is thin there - we had decided that we would spend two days acclimatising at Pariwana hostel before tackling Machu Picchu and this turned out well as the hostel was really lovely, as was Cusco. As soon as we set foot out of the plane we could feel the difference in air - breathing was an effort. After collecting our luggage, we took an official “taxi” to our hostel and set up camp. By this time it was only about 7am, not being able to check-in to our room until 1pm we headed for the tv room as it was stuffed full of lots of comfy looking cushions, and Cate had a nice little doze until some bird came in and put the film Dogma on at full blast.

We really didn’t manage to do much that day as we were breathless and tired. But of course, as was our way in South America, we made sure that we went out for meals and fed ourselves up. We headed out to the Plaza de Armes, a couple of streets away and chose the first place that we saw to have lunch at. We never do this but even walking across to the other side of the square felt like too much of an effort! Yakumama was a great choice anyway and we ended up going back again the following day for lunch. We sat on the balcony overlooking the square and Matt chose a really lovely dish - skewers of alpaca with scallop-type potatoes. The alpaca was so tasty that when we returned the next day, I ordered the same dish for myself and it was with no doubt one of the nicest meals I have had on our travels. An alpaca is a bit like a llama but is smaller and furrier. I don’t know what llama tastes like but alpaca, well, I think it is my new favourite meat! We decided to take a short walk around to have a look at Cusco and we realised that it was a really great place.

Cusco itself looked a bit like a dustbowl when we were looking out from the plane but it really has a lot of character. We noticed on our taxi ride to our hostel that lots of street work was going on - I’m not quite sure what they were doing but it looked like they might have been pulling up the roads and paving them. And it wasn’t just one or two roads...it was loads. There were lots of run-down looking buildings, many of which didn’t look inhabited and many, many roaming lone dogs. Cusco was our first experience of a small South American town as we had been in cities ever since flying into Chile. We found that it was very much the Asia of where we had visited in South America. It just felt the same. Touts for tours tried their best to pull us into shops, people manning market stalls called out to us and were happy for us to barter for items and restaurant touts made promises of free drinks if we ate at their restaurant. Children and adults tried to sell sweets and toilet rolls to car drivers in traffic and men walked around trying to find people that would pay to have their shoes shined. Women walked around with babies in blankets on their backs and it wasn’t rare to see others carrying bundles of hay around, I’m not quite sure what for. I was shocked to see that Peruvians, especially older ladies really do wear traditional clothes - bright coloured blankets over their backs to carry things in, hats, and woollen leg warmers. It was very cool to see. There were people begging and others trying to sell food or drinks on street stands. Chocolate seemed to be rare in supermarkets and was very expensive in comparison to other goods. Many people walked the streets or came to your table in the restaurant trying to show and sell you the prints in their folder; all their own original work (which it was definitely not), “looking is free, looking is free, only uno soles;” they weren’t. The main plaza was very pretty; it had old, impressive looking buildings, a water fountains, grass areas, benches and shops/restaurants all the way round the outside. A tram style bus circled the square, providing tourists aboard with information about Cusco and there was a statue at the top of the hill, similar to Santiago’s Virgin Mary at the top of San Cristobal. At night, the statue was lit up and looked as though it was flying as the hill was no longer visible. The small part of Cusco that we walked around had numerous market stalls selling many brightly coloured accessories and woollen goods and the streets were always bustling with people. It felt fairly safe despite having the knowledge that a girl at our hostel had been mugged the night before we arrived whilst walking home so of course we had our guard up anyway, but people seemed quite genuine there and I think we both fell in love with it (with fond memories of Asia stirred up in our minds too).

Feeling much better the next day after a decent amount of sleep for a change (we’ve spent so much time in South America with our bodyclocks all over the place from flying or overnight bus journeys) we ventured out into the big wide world to partake in the activity that all trips finish with ... shopping for presents! After a particularly arduous session of trawling all the market stalls in town for many and varied different types of alpaca woollen based goods there was little to do except get a good night’s sleep ready for our journey to Machu Picchu the next morning.

To get to Machu Picchu you first need to head to Aguas Calienties on the train, we’d booked our tickets in advance over the internet so no need to deal with any of the plethora of touts around Cuzco. Before we left for the train station we’d found out through the hostel that the ‘train journey’ is actually two hours on a bus followed by ninety minutes on the train ... no idea why, possibly something to do with the flooding that had closed Machu Picchu for a couple of months previous to our visit, or (more likely) buses are cheaper to run! So off we set towards the bus station in a taxi that was full of fumes and had no suspension and then on our two hour bus journey through the Peruvian countryside, the journey wasn’t as bad as I might have envisaged, the road was paved nearly all of the way and there were no crazy mountain roads with massive drops down the side, awesome. There was a lot to take in as we were driven towards the train station on our minibus; we saw corn drying on the roofs of houses, buildings made out of dried soil, clouds lingering below us and for the first time since returning to Bangkok, tuk tuks roaming the streets! There were also cactus hedges, more stray dogs and some really unhealthy looking livestock. It was an interesting journey and although there weren’t steep mountain drops, we were definitely climbing in height at times and breathing became difficult. Being driven in a mini bus is a really good way to people watch and see the scenery and thankfully I didn’t feel travel sick until the very last few minutes of the journey.

When we arrived at Piscacucho, we hopped off the bus and rushed down the railway tracks to catch the train, only to be told that it was the local one and ours was the next train. A Canadian girl that I’d noticed in our hostel that morning came across to us while we waited and struck up a conversation. We talked until the train came, quite a while later, then boarded and were taken very slowly to Aguas Calientes along the side of a very rapidy river. The train was very modern and had partial glass ceilings so you could see the mountains above and the journey passed quickly as the train set off and we headed for Aguas Calienties and Machu Picchu ...

Cate & Matt x

---