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Published: July 21st 2012
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The overnight bus from Lima to Cusco was as pleasant as a 20 hour bus ride could be. Leaving at 5.30pm, the majority of the ride was overnight so it helped to cut down how long the ride actually felt. When we booked the tickets online we found that the executive seats and normal seats were oddly the same price. We later found out that if we had booked the seats in Lima it probably would have been significantly cheaper. The company itself Cruz del Sur has a great reputation within Peru, offering really comfortable seats and service, the buses are very modern and very well maintained and the drivers have to rotate every four hours or so. So in the end we didn’t mind paying extra, plus we got to choose our seats and being in executive we got semi sleeper seats too.
Originally we were going to spend less time in Cusco before doing the Inca Trail, but after doing a bit of reading I had found out that about a day before we intended to arrive was a festival called Inti Raymi, the Sun Festival which was traditional from when the Inca’s were around. With
Cusco being the former capital of the Incan nation it was central to most things Incan. Here was the largest celebration, it used to be celebrated on the winter solstice, where the Incans would praise the Sun God and make offerings for the season ahead. So we had booked early to get in to Cusco and it was great for two main reasons besides the festival, adjusting to the higher altitude and because Cusco is a fantastic city, much better than just a tourist trap we anticipated.
Anyone could describe the problems you face at altitude, and you can do as much research on it but there’s nothing that can truly prepare you for what you are hit with. You are pretty much always out of breath, regardless of whether or not you are doing anything and your heart is pretty much racing all the time. That was the worst I seemed to face. Amanda though, felt a little more dizzy and nauseous. So after facing that sort of challenge, it probably wasn’t the best of ideas to book a hostel where you have to walk up two and a half flights of stairs. On our first
attempt we must have stopped every five steps or so. Once we got up to the hostel, some of the owners followed behind us and were similarly panting for air which was a comforting feeling. But having said that, even after the four days we spent there acclimatising it was still a small challenge to climb the stairs though definitely not as hard as the first day.
The Inti Raymi festival was nothing short of spectacular, full of colour, music, dancing and celebration. Everyone that was a part of it, and there were hundreds, were fully into the celebrations and all the re-enactments. It had started at about 6am with canon blasts waking me up which I had initially thought was thunder. At about 9am a procession marches into Qoricancha (now a church where the Spanish built over the Temple of the Sun) representing high priests, officials, nobles and warriors where the Sapa Inca calls for blessings from the sun. From here the procession leads on to the main square before heading to Suacsayhuaman an old Inca site where more processions and a llama sacrifice is re-enacted. In truth we only really saw the procession up to
the main square. The festival took a good few hours before reaching the main square and by then the effects of altitude was having a pretty bad effect. And unfortunately we couldn’t make it through to our hostel as we were stuck on the wrong side of a barricade of the square. It didn’t stop the Peruvians trying to get through though. I was near the front of the police barricade and kept having little old ladies pushing me in the back trying to force their way through, telling me to move out the way so they could pass, despite being told numerous times that there was absolutely no way through. The crowds were getting pretty angry with each other, with locals having to push back other locals trying to push through with threats to get the police involved if they didn’t stop. But despite the altitude and being pushed around by little old ladies, the festival was really entertaining and a good sight into the culture and belief of the Incan people.
The city itself is a mix of Incan and colonial buildings evident most places you walk. The main square holds quite a few churches
and buildings that are now a mixture of either restaurants or travel agents. Pretty much all bars around have happy hour running, with some seeming to be a constant all day happy hour. It means you can go around and get some decent deals, and along with most restaurants running all day menus (usually a set 2 or 3 course menu) starting as low as 10 soles ($4au) to around 30 soles depending on what’s on offer. So it was pretty easy to live on the cheap here. The market also provided even more value for money, with big portions of food going cheaper than the menus and as much as I wanted to try the food I was wary of the potential consequences especially a few days before heading out on a four day trek. We had however found a small restaurant called Grimaldo’s on the first night we arrived, which pretty much specialised in charcoal chicken, one of my favourite fast foods back home in Oz that for some strange reason doesn’t exist anywhere in the UK. On the plus side it was full of locals, so really I was just indulging in local culture. So really visiting
the place again before we left for the Inca trail only seemed like the right thing to do.
The night before the trek there was a meeting at the LLamapath office where we met Santiago our guide, Wilbur the assistant guide and the rest of the crew. Santiago finalised all the bookings, went through the trek and what to expect. A 4.30am meeting the next day was not exactly what I was expecting to hear, as I’m sure I’d heard or read that it was usually 6.30am. But anyway, all that meant was an early night anyway before what was going to be an awesome adventure.
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