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Published: September 2nd 2008
Door detail
Iglesia de la Compania de Jesus, Plaza de ArmasLa Paz to Cusco was always going to be a long day of travel but there were some diverting incidents to keep me awake, including a 2 hour wait at the border while the driver tried in vain to add to his collection of 4 passengers, being at the wrong end of the worst Chilean peso -> Peruvian sole exchange rate imaginable in order to pay the 1 sole terminal charge in Puno, a delay due to a flat tire, a delay for reasons unknown other than that the drivers of about 20 consecutive vehicles seemed to decide they all fancied a cigarette break, and a delay due to a disgruntled passenger beating up a trouble-making drunken teenager. A lack of loo stops ensured no further loss of momentum, and an aisle-full of sleeping children and standing adults meant that comfort was sacrificed for the bus company's profits. Arrival at Cusco bus station after midnight gave me the choice of a legion of taxi drivers all charging 3 times the correct rate for the trip into town, my only consolation being that my driver was unable to locate my chosen hostal and was forced to call them on his mobile. Unfortunately
Wall
Koricancha the hostal had no record of my reservation, and were nonplussed when I showed them the e-mail confirmation. To their credit, they kicked a guy out of his bed in order to free up a room for me (an act that made little sense to me at the time, though he was remarkably sanguine about it), then gave me a large discount for the inconvenience.
Accommodation availability was to be a problem throughout my stay in Cusco. With it being high season and Cusco one of the most-visited destinations in South America, anywhere listed in the LP, RG, or any other guidebook was packed, with even a week's notice insufficient to obtain a reservation. The quality of accommodation was highly variable, even within an establishment, and I haven't had so many tedious discussions about hot water since I was in India (though fortunately the ambient temperature was rather warmer than my recent locations). In one room, I returned after it had been cleaned to find the TV remote had been carefully stowed away in my washbag. In another, the staff brazenly commandeered my battery charger to attempt to charge some non-rechargeable batteries. My room tally for a fortnight in
Corns
Cafe El Arbol Cusco was a mind-boggling 6 in 3 different hostals.
Naturally Cusco contained droves of tourists, with especially noteworthy numbers of Americans (no expensive reciprocal visa fees as with, say, Bolivia) and French (no idea - knowledge of Spanish, perhaps?) The main square, Plaza de Armas, was lined with shops, restaurants, and tour agencies that were only aimed at the tourist dollar. However the city in general had managed to absorb all these foreigners while still retaining a small-town feel. Soles had been gained but little soul had been lost. Walking down some of the narrow cobbled streets, pavements so minuscule that being clipped by a passing wing mirror was a distinct possibility, I was reminded of rural Andalucia. Churches and convents from colonial times spiked out of the city's skyline, the object of their venerations also represented by a giant white statue of Christ on a hill overlooking the city.
Of course Cusco's origins were as the centre of the most powerful native empire ever seen in South America - that of the Incas. The Inca civilisation did not possess iron or the wheel yet produced some amazing stone architecture. In fact many of Cusco's buildings were erected
on Inca foundations, and it's common to find the precisely-slotted stones of Inca architecture comprising the first couple of feet of a building's walls before being topped off by Spanish constructions. The stability of these foundations has exceeded that of many more modern buildings in Peru. (Two of the best examples of Inca stone construction can be found at Korikancha, now the site of the church of Santo Domingo, and the alleyway of Hathun Rumiyoq). It is not yet known if the Incas had a writing system, though the recording devices known as quipu - knots in coloured threads - may yet prove to be not just for the storage of mnemonic or numerical data. The Incas were adept at skull trepanning, probably as a surgery for patients with head injuries, and also practised cranial deformation on young children (possibly as a means of distinguishing different ethnicities). Though they prized textiles above precious metals, Cusco still contained riches of gold and silver that stunned even the avaricious conquistadores when they took the city in 1535. Sadly the pillaging of the Spanish was extensive and comprehensive, with the gold and silver in the city's museums nowadays a pitiful selection. Museums as
far away as Quito contain better examples of Inca metalwork.
Food in Cusco produced a surprising variety of options compared with everywhere else I've been in South America. Chinese and vegetarian food seem to be popular in Peru, with the former cuisine containing a dish called Aeropuerto, whose name apparently derives from the fact that everything lands in it. The set menus were astoundingly good value and were available for both lunch and dinner. It was disappointing that, in the land where potatoes were first cultivated, there was so little in the way of potato-related culinary innovation, especially as the starchy chaps are in my top 3 favourite vegetables. Guinea-pig featured on most tourist menus but I couldn't convince myself that such a small creature would be anything other than a fiddly, bony meal.
Peru's national soft drink, Inca Kola, a yellow concoction tasting of bubblegum, has the rare distinction of outselling Coca Cola in its home market (Irn-Bru in Scotland is one of the few other drinks that can say the same). However since Inca Kola is now owned by Coke, that apparent competition is hardly denting The Coca Cola Company's bottom line. My own Diet Coke
vice turned out to be more expensive than expected as, in Peru, the drink comes in 410ml bottles rather than the usual half-litres. Strangely, Coke Zero still merits a 500ml bottle.
Despite the city's laid-back atmosphere, it was clear that the Cusco Department of Tourism was no slouch when it came to maximising tourist revenue. 16 sites in and around the city had been lumped together in a special tourist ticket, without which you couldn't see any of them (not strictly true, but the cost of individual tickets for 2 sets of ruins outside Cusco exceeded that of the all-in ticket). Several other sites within the city were also on their own ticket. These tickets cost more for foreigners than for locals, for which you got little in the way of English descriptions, and what English there was came from the realms of Spanglish (I would guess there must be more English-Spanish bilingual speakers in the world than pretty much any other pair of languages yet the amount of "sweat and sour" pork on menus seemed to dispute that). Sadly, as we were to discover later, the tourist industry in Peru generally has a bias towards whoever has money
rather than even towards its own people.
Regardless of its worth as a tourist destination (and I did like it a lot), I had a more compelling reason to be in Cusco - a rendezvous with LA Woman, coming from Atlanta via Miami and Lima. We would be spending the next 6 weeks travelling Peru together. My fortnight in Bolivia had acclimatised me to the altitude (Cusco is at about 3,300m), but she was coming from sea level and needed regular coca tea infusions to cope with the sudden change. Cusco proved to be a suitable spot for her acclimatisation before we started investigating the surrounding countryside (blogged separately) and then moved further afield.
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Stephen Paul
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Great Shots
Wonderful attention to the little things that grab the attention! My favorites are "corn", "bolt from the blue" and "Spanish house built on Inca foundations"!! Great stuff