Cusco

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After the worst night bus so far (heating on all night, brakes on bus
locked up 3 times and the bendiest road ever) I was hoping Cusco was
every bit as good as what we heard it was.

Day 1 (10th)

It was abit of a shame that we both didn't get much sleep on the
overnight bus because Cusco is renowned for it's Saturday nights out.
We arrived at Cusco bus station and got a 4 sole taxi to Loki where we
were in our first 11 person dorm. It wasn't bad bunkbeds, red hot
water, just far enough away from the bar to not get woke up but close
enough to have a casual pint whenever you pleased and the friendliest
staff at a hostel as of yet. The face we were soo tired meant today
was gunna be a slow day. We headed into Cusco and to the first Irish
bar we could find to watch the Germans destroy the Uruguayans, we only
watched the first half then sat in Plaza de Armas feeling sorry for
ourselves because we were that tired. Dave and Lauren a nice couple I
had met in Mancora bumped into us while we were sat and agreed we
would meet up while in Cusco. We then headed to The Real McCoy a must
for any Brit missing home cooking. Hollie got sausages and mash and I
got fish and chips with a side of gravy, it was delicious a definite
recommendation for anyone visiting Cusco. We were knackered so pretty
much headed to bed after food but stayed up a while in the dorm
listening to 2 Peruvian musicians from the bunk opposite playing
everything from Stevie Wonder to Jason Mraz on the guitar, very
talented.

Day 2 (World Cup Final)

World cup final day means only 1 thing drinking allday and hopefully
David Villa scoring so I bag a ton from my only World cup bet.
Woke up got a decent breakfast in us although mine came straight back
out had the shits for 2 days now and keep waking up in the middle of
the night and throwing all that days food up, the beer with breakfast
probably didn't help but tasted good! Loki were doing 2 promotions for
the final; firstly if you put a 2 soles bet on who will win the world
cup and get it right you get a blood bomb (worth 12 soles), secondly
if you put a 5 soles bet on the correct score, first goalscorer or
time of first goal you get a free t shirt and if you get it right you
get 50% of all the money staked, with the other 50% going to a local
charity. Spain and David Villa were my bets, picking up a free Loki
Brazil shirt along the way.
Netherlands spoilt the final by being incredibly dirty and in my view
got what they deserved, for a team to play brilliant football in the
all the other games then come out and play how they did in the final
was bad management! On a positive though i thought it was a hard game
to referee and Howard Webb did England proud, more than the england
players!
After the final we just stayed in the bar drinking and socializing
until about 7ish when poker started and obviously I was in. Again I
started off well winning a big pot early on, but I knew pretty much
straight away it would be difficult to win the whole thing, there was
an Irish guy and a Peruvian kid who could play. About an hour in I got
dealt Jacks and raised and was called by the Irish guy and Peruvian
kid after they had both called the big blind. The flop came 10, 7, 3
no flush, they checked and so I decided to I didn't want another card
so I went all in with the pot being alot bigger than what was in frot
of me, the Irish guy took a while then called he had queens, the turn
and river didn't improve my hand so I was out. Hollie was in a pool
team with the staff from Loki so I re-bought.
I knew it would be even harder to win now as the Irish guy and
Peruvian kid both had deep stacks. After about 2 more hours of playing
very aggressive and knocking player after player out I won with pocket
7s against queen, 10 against the Irish guy and pocketed 70 soles. I
bought me and Hollie a few drinks and we sat talking to Nolly and Kim
for few hours 2 members of staff at Loki. As no one seemed to be going
to a club we went to bed and agreed to go out clubbing tomorrow.

Day 3 (12th)

We got up and had breakfast at Loki before starting our volunteering
we had signed up for the day before. It was 10 soles and organized by
Kim, it took us 40 minutes to get to the makeshift village that the
American government had kindly made. Most people heard of the
mudslides that had closed the Inca trail in the rainy season in Peru
but not many people (including me) knew it killed alot of people and
left thousands of men, women and children homeless.
We pulled up to the tents with tin roofs and got milk and juice out
ready for the kids coming out of school. The kids were soo cute they
formed a line and drank the juice and milk dry in 5 minutes. After the
boys played football with me and a couple of the lads from Loki, while
the girls coloured in and skipped. If I had known I would have took
sweets as when I got out a packet of imperial mints all the kids
stopped what they were doing and begged to have one, it was quite
depressing to see. We spent about 2-3 hours playing with the children
ending the trip with a water fight (some of the girls got soaked)
before heading back to Loki.
We planned on mooching round Cusco and maybe grabbing something to eat
late on but we ran into Dave and lauren and decided to look around a
part of Cusco we had never been than Dave recommended up near Jacks
past Paddy McGhertys. We looked round a couple of menus then found a
hotel overlooking the whole of Cuscos it was beautiful, nearly as nice
as the grilled Alpaca (animal similar to Llama) and vegetable lasagna
me and Hollie ordered. After tea we decided to walk toward Loki
hitting a couple of bars en route, we stopped off at Paddys for happy
hour then headed to The Real McCoy for the quiz. It went quite well
and if it wast for the geniuses to the right of us we might have stood
a chance.
With happy hour finished at the Real McCoy we headed to Loki for more
happy hour and Name that tune. We were too busy drinking and talking
so we missed the first 11 songs of Name that tune but Kim played the
first 30 seconds of them again, not that it helped we did awful the
80s section let us down. After much more drink and abit of dancing we
left Loki and headed to Mythology (nightclub). We spent about 2 hours
in there drinking and dancing until it became too busy and you
couldn't move let alone dance so we left, just after leaving mythology
this was the first time I have craved a parmo since I have been away
only once in 6 weeks not bad. Obviously not filling my craving we went
to bed hungry and unfulfilled.

Day 4 (13th)

There was only one aim for today due to the fact me and Hollie were
severely hungover and that was to book the inca trail for the
following day seen as though my diarrhea had gone and I was no longer
vomitting in the middle of the night. We had talked to alot of people
at Loki about the different trails and various companies to go with.
We decided to do the Inka jungle trail because it had the most
diversity, the first day was a 40-50km mountain biking, the second day
was a 12 hour jungle walk and third day was 6 hours following the
river and train tracks, which all sounded pretty good to us. Rey
Moises was the company we picked as it had good reviews from people
and was only 135 dollars for a student (we had student travel cards).
The rest of the day after booking the inca trail was just dossing
around the hostel, only going into Cusco to get the ultimate hangover
food, (double cheeseburger from Mccys) although I ordered the wrong
thing and ended up getting a beast of a burger (double
Quarter pounder with cheese).

Seen as though we had paid a fair bit for the inca trail we decided
not to drink the night before. The plan was a film from the bar and a
takeaway pizza from some place recommended by Loki reception.
Pineapple express and a family sized margerita was the outcome and
panned out pretty well in the end.

After the film we headed to bed, very excited about the inca trail and
one of the seven wonders of the world Machu Picchu.

Muchos love

Brown

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