Cusco... city of the Inca´s

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The tally so far...
hostels/hotels: 18
we´ve changed beds 24 times
plane rides: 3
long haul bus trips: 9

Arrived in Cusco after yet another long night bus trip and checked into Pariwana Hostel. We were there way before check-in time so we stashed our bags in storage and went out to walk the city. As we walked outside we noticed that there were 11 different locks on the massive double doors to the hostel.. high security! We had arrived on Easter Sunday so there was a big shebang on at the Plaza de Armas. We got prime seats at a cafe overlooking the plaza and cathedral and watched the spectacle over a shit cup of coffee. They had big religious processions and a show of force from the army. Rows of little men in G.I. Joe outfits with big guns with bayonets on the end... lovely. The church did a big speech in Spanish that we couldn´t understand and they hoisted a few flags.. including a Peruvian one that looks exactly like the gay pride flag. We spent quite a few hours walking around the city, with a lot of old beautiful colonial style buildings and Inca walls that are still standing. Headed back to the hostel in the afternoon to check in to our dorm. We were over the moon to find that we had lovely, comfortable beds with fat pillows and inviting feather duvets.. awesome! So we didn´t do much the first night since we are always broke the day before pay day. We hit the sack early to rest up for the next day. That night we found out that we had 3 rather annoying young room mates who liked to come in the dorm in the middle of the night and turn the lights on while they stuffed around in their lockers.. ah the joys of dorm living.

Next day after finding that we still hadn´t been paid, the realisation dawned on us that there was a public holiday in Australia.. so no money! We took ourselves on a walking tour of San Blas, a pretty area on the hill above Cusco. The streets were paved and most of them too skinny for cars.. although we did see a guy on a motorbike driving up the stairs with two gas bottles strapped to the bike.. dodgy! All of the houses in San Blas were painted white with blue doors and windows. We were going to check out a few churches but we found that the prices were really high just to get through the door and since we had zero cash we would have to miss out. On the plus side, we found a kick ass vegetarian restaurant that sold felafel sandwiches for a mere 4 soles.. about $2. Best felafel ever! Well.. actually Carol they weren´t better than yours of course  We stayed in that night and watched dvd´s.. Pariwana had the best tv room we have come across yet.. nice and dark with floors literally covered in cushions and beanbags.. ahh relaxing.

Next day we finally got our money in the bank. Lucky our hostel let us order food from the bar and add it to our bill otherwise we would have gone hungry for the night! Damn jebus holidays messing up our income. We bought our Cusco tourist tickets, which allowed us to see all of the ruins around the city plus several museums in the city. We decided to go check out Pisac first, since it was furthest away and we could potentially see 4 other ruin sites on the way home. We headed off to the local bus station and boarded an old rattler for the 1 hour trip to Pisac. The bus driver was a bit no holds barred on the road, speeding around the corners without a care for what was on the other side.. be it another vehicle or a mountainside.. no worries! We got dropped just outside town as the bridge over the river was being rebuilt. We walked over dodgy wobbly scaffolding to get to the other side and were immediately accosted by 20 people trying to sell us various crap. We managed to find a taxi that would take us up the hill to the ruins entrance for a reasonable price. The road was not too bad most of the way, but nearer the top there had been rock falls and were boulders the size of a small car in the middle of the road that we had to drive around. Pisac ended up taking us a good half day to walk around. It was hot and there was a lot to see. Quite a few tourists around as usual so we quickly checked out the first small ruin site and headed off to avoid the tour groups. Second ruin site was on a hillside with lots of doorways and maze-like rooms and beautiful views. The walls were made a smallish stones, roughly cut and rounded. Down from the ruin site was another hillside covered in terraces for food cultivation. We headed off down the next path around the side of a hill with a rather big drop if you put one foot wrong. The next ruin site was a completely different style to the last. The walls had perfectly cut stone bricks, all quite large and smooth. The walls were amazing how they fit together with no mortar. There was even still a working irrigation system with water running through it. By this point the weather was taking a turn for the worst so we hurried back to the entrance gate to avoid getting rained on. The next cab driver tried to rip us off but luckily we stood our ground and got the same return price. Then the cheeky bugger took on 3 extra local passengers! Got back to town without getting totalled by any falling rocks and caught a colectivo (local bus that leaves once it has a full load of passengers) back to Cusco.

That night we cooked our own dinner in the hostel, due to lack of funds. We went to the massive outdoor market up the road and bought a huge bag of veggies for $5. We even managed to find polenta at the supermarket and were excited in advance about our home cooked meal. We whipped up a storm in the kitchen using what meagre supplies they had.. eg. 1 knife, 2 pots... not much to share in a hostel that sleeps more than 200 people. Dinner was awesome in the end and we made sure we saved enough to have a packed lunch for our big day tomorrow.

Next morning we were up bright and early to go see 4 more Inca sites, just outside of the city. We packed our bags and headed to the kitchen to get our packed lunch.. only to discover that disaster had befallen us.. some bastard had stolen our food! Well that put me in a foul mood for the morning, can´t believe somebody would be rude enough to do that. Since cash was short we had to head to the supermercado (supermarket) to buy some cheap food so we didn´t have to go to a restaurant for lunch. So we go the usual.. crackers with cheese and some tuna for Aaron.. oh and by the way, the brand on the tuna here is Fanny.. heheh. So, still with wrath and revenge on my mind, we headed off to the bus stop. Found it easy enough and crammed in with the locals to head out to Tambomachay, 5 miles out of town.

Tambomachay was quite small. It was a site of lodging for the Inca´s, and also a place to bathe. The usual hawkers were hanging around, trying to flog off their wares.. unfortunately for them we are but poor backpackers. It only took 15 minutes to check out the site so we headed directly across the road to Puka Pukara, which used to be a road control and administrative centre, military headquarters and food warehouse. This site was also quite small and we got through it in 20 minutes. Next part of the mission was a 2 mile walk to the next site. We passed through a cute little town that was little more than 20 houses either side of the road. Walking through there we saw a mama pig with 4 piglets.. sadly, Aaron wouldn´t let me keep one. The walk was long in the hot sun, but we had bought along our iPod speakers and sung along to Michael Franti to help pass the time. Arrived at Qènqo and had our little lunch while I tried to not plot my revenge on the person who stole my home cooked lunch. Qènqo was also a rather small site, but sadly damaged and defaced by the Spaniards. It used to be a sacred sanctuary of worship to fertility. We headed off from there and walked another mile to the highlight of the day, Saqsaywaman (the way to pronounce this one is very similar to ´sexy woman´). Saqsaywaman was massive, an impressive defensive structure made of stones so big that some of them weigh more than 70 tonnes. Built over some 77 years from 1431, it´s amazing how well it has stayed together. Check out our photos to get an idea of how huge the stones are. We headed back to Cusco after Saqsaywaman, singing along with our iPod and weirding out the locals. Checked out a few of the museums on our tourist ticket on the way home, they were very average and rather disappointing. We bumped into Joel and Helen, a Kiwi couple that we met at the animal sanctuary in Coroico. It was pouring rain by that point so we invited them to our hostel which had a really good bar and got rather pissed for the night.
A few days later we had Joel & Helen over for dinner at the hostel and we joined the hostel pub crawl. The night started with 2 for 1 cocktails at the bar and then we found that we would be getting 2 for 1 all night while on the pub crawl. The bars were pretty cool and it was good to have our guide from the hostel to take us to places we wouldn't have gone into ourselves. We only made it through 3 bars before we got too drunk on mojito's and decided to go home.

Not much more to do in Cusco now except head for the Inca Trail and Machu Picchu.. woo hoo!

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Comments

[Eric]

I really enjoyed your Peru post. It reminded me of my time there. My blog is looking for travel photos. If you any time, email us some (like that che one!) at [e-mail] or check us out at dirty-hippies.blogspot.com Continued fun on your travels, Eric