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Published: December 19th 2012
Day 8: Saturday, August 18th, 2012
Today is the official start day of our Intrepid Inca Trail Express tour. We started the tour at a different hostal because apparently the hostal that we were staying at was overbooked. At the last minute they must have changed hostals again because the hostal on the vouchers they gave us was incorrect. We finally ended up in the right hostal after contemplating whether we had a place to stay and two taxi cab rides later. I did not understand why Intrepid could not inform us before hand that they changed hostals, instead of us making an unnecessary stop which cost us an extra 5 soles. They were pretty disorganized and I was not impressed.
At the Hostal Buenovista, we met Fernando, our tour guide and the rest of the group that we would be traveling with for the next couple of days. Fernando explained the itinerary for the rest of the tour. Then we started our city tour of Cusco. We visited the Coca Museum, where we learned about what the Andean people used Coca for. We also learned how cocaine was produced (It is a long chemical process). The chemicals used
to extract the cocaine from the plant can be fatal if ingested and it is a dangerous process to make. I am not sure why anyone would want to try such a fatal drug. Unfortunately, Peru is the top producer of cocaine in the world currently. The farms used to make the coca leaves for cocaine are located in the jungle. The cycle continues because the poor farmers receive much more money from suppling coca leaves then any other fruit or vegetable. It is really sad how the cycle is allowed to continue
After the Coca museum, we headed off to a sandwich joint to eat. We ordered a burger and fries. The burger we ordered was huge, covered in egg batter and deep fried. I did not enjoy it very much. After lunch we were going to continue the Cusco city tour, however, we were left behind at the sandwich joint. We were told that they were in the main square, but when we reached the main square, we could not find the group. So instead, we went shopping for a water bottle for my sister, Renata, for the trek since she lost her previous one. So we
were not impressed with Intrepid on the first day of the tour. We also thought that they would plan a tour to see the ruins around the city as in their itinerary on their website, but that was not the case. Now we know that if we are going to plan optional excursions, not to rely on Intrepid. So that marked the end of our first day on the Inca Trail Express tour.
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