Cusco

DAY 17 THURSDAY 20 DECEMBER 2007

We had the same driver to the airport as we had from the airport the other day.  Which was handy as I had left my fleece in his car, so this was my chance to get it back.  The taxi ride was interesting as the other night it was dark, so now we get to see more of the city.  Everyone seems to live behind barred windows or high walls, or they have security guards.

Beautiful old city with lots of historical sites

We made it to the airport in good time - obviously the driver is related to Michael Schumacker.  We checked in easily and had coffee while waiting for our flight.  Everything ran according to plan today - an absolute first so far.

There wasn't much to see on the flight as it was quite cloudy.  Although once we got closer to Cuzco the clouds lifted a little and we saw how big the town, or should I say city is.  The city is surrounded by mountains although there doesn't seem to be a lot of trees, there are a lot of crops.

Finally we have arrived in Cusco - one more step closer to Machu Picchu. We got a taxi to our hostel and realised how big Cusco actually is, somehow I expected a small town - only the walk to the top of the hill, later, proves how wrong we are).  The taxi driver dropped us close to the hostel and we walked up the narrow cobble lined street finding it easily.  We checked into the hostel (Casa de la Gringa II) and our room is spotlessly clean, there is a bit of road noise, but not thumping disco music and no DVDs at 100db like in Lima.

We headed to the SAE to get info on booking trains and then headed down to the train station at Huanchac, stopping along the way to have a cob of Andean corn from a street vendor, and booked tickets to Agua Calientes on 24 December.  We can´t get a ticket back on the 26 December, so we are going to stay there another night and head back to Cusco on 27 December.

We walked back up into town - a long walk as we haven´t yet acclimatised to the altitude (3400m ASL).  We wandered back to SAE and got information on other things to do in the area and also asked about the tourist warnings to La Paz in Bolivia which is still having troubles, so we are thinking of heading to Puno and then Arequipa.  We will keep checking the consulate web-sites and SmartTraveller.

We had lunch at a new age vegetarian restaurant and a stroll around the Plaza San Bas.  It is a lovely sunny and warm afternoon, fingers crossed the weather stays like this.  The plaza has a church on one side and then steps up to another street .  All around are old houses, shops, cafes etc.  All the buildings here are roofed in the same terracotta tiles, which kind of make it resemble an Italian country village.

We headed to an internet cafe and did photos and had a walk around San Blas selecting a restaurant where Scott could try Alpaca - he thought it was a bit boring, but I had a lovely tortilla and we shared half a jug of wine.

We headed back to the hotel as we are knackered.

DAY 18 FRIDAY 21 DECEMBER 2007

Got up both feeling under the weather (nothing to do with the previously mentioned half jug of wine) Scott with a cold and me with a headache.  We had a cooked breakfast in the hotel before heading off to see the sights.

First up was a walk to the iPeru office to get a Boleta Turistico ticket so we can get into the sights, not that it gets you everywhere, but a brilliant con, if you dent have one you cant pay per site you want to visit.

We headed to the Plaza de Armas (one thing about Peru every garden and street is spotless, there isn't any litter).  The plaza is huge and surrounded by old buildings and a cathedral.  The plaza itself has lots of greenery and flowers with a large fountain in the middle.  There are loads of people, tourists and locals, sitting and chatting.  The shops surrounding the plaza are tour guide companies with cafes etc above them.

We visited Qorikancha and the Iglesia de Santo Domingo which was fantastic.  The base was made by the Incas and then the Catholic church knocked the top part down and built a church, now when there is an earthquake it is the top part that keeps breaking up - karma perhaps?  Every Spanish building seems to have once been an Incan building, the roads Incan walkways, the grand houses, incan palaces.

We visited the La Catedral which has more gold and silver altars than you can jump over, never believe the catholic church when it claims poverty!  The front of the main altar is 1250kg of silver and the rear of the altar is made of solid gold!

We had a coffee at Plaza de Armas before following an Inca Walls tour that was detailed in the Lonely Planet.  We are glad they have kept as much history around the town and also surprising how few beggars there are here.  There is still lots of poverty, the buggers just try and sell you stuff instead of begging.  We continued wandering around the streets which involves loads of stairs.  The Incans must have been very fit.  We lunch at a place called Jacks Cafe on Choquechaca which was very touristy.

We decided to do the walk up to Saqsaywaman (the fort is mean to resemble the shape of a pumas jaw) which was extremely hard going as it is just stairs, stairs and more stairs and they aren't even or at a standard step so you need to concentrate the whole way up.  We are still not fully acclimatised either so breathing is really hard.  You can only take a few steps and then rest and continue, I never thought I would make it but I did, eventually - yay for me!  Backpackers tend to walk the six miles to see the sites and Tourists go my bus, but it is exciting to walk on an Incan path that was built by hand so long ago.  The ingenuity of the Incan masons is incredible.  They were able to chisel huge boulders into the exact shapes so everything fitted exactly.  They also built the fortresses to be self sustaining and surrounded by terraced fields and this method is still being used today.  Still cant imagine how the Incas built a fortress here.

We then did our mountain goat impression and walked, jumped and scampered across to the adjoining hill to look at the San Cristobel statue - very freaky eyes but Jesus was getting a coat of paint for his birthday.

We headed back down what felt like a million stairs, my calves must be made of steel by now.

Once back we caught a taxi to the Inka Express office to book our bus tickets to Puno.  The taxi driver pointed out a cactus bush outside the tourist office that was bearing fruit, and notwithstanding the language barrier, the taxi driver harvested a fruit, which he peeled and offered to me.  The fruit was orange in colour, sweet  and had an unusual but delicious flavour.  We have decided to take a tourist bus which stops at some sights along the way (Kylie would be proud of us taking the tourist approach).  We then caught a taxi back and dropped our laundry off at the two hour place across the road.

We headed to a local restaurant for dinner (Cafe Cultural Ritual) where I had a lovely quinoa tortilla and Scott had trout, which is a specialty around here.  We also had a couple of glasses of vino tinto and a lovely ensalada de Frutas.  When you order something in a restaurant here they tend to have to go out and buy the ingredients or the wine etc, so at least you know it is fresh.

We had an early night as we are both still feeling very ordinary and not getting any better.

DAY 19 SATURDAY 22 DECEMBER 2007

Brekkie at the hotel.  We then packed up our bags leaving ourselves only the clothes we are wearing and a spare set as we are off and it is too hard to take our big backpacks, so we will be travelling with day packs for the next week.  We have dropped our bags at SAE for safe-keeping having to walk through a million kids who were all queuing up to get a christmas present.  Dropping off all our bags is very liberating.

We headed to the Museo Inka which yep, we had to pay for as it isn't on the Boleto Turistica ticket.  The museum was interesting except everything was written in Spanish.  This is yet another example of the sites and tourist places where videos and photograhy is strictly banned.  You can take away only memories, or the official brochure if you pay for it!  There was some good maps and information about Machu Picchu so we got to see a scale mock up of the site.

We trundled to the Plaza de Armas for a coffee and watched the world go by in the main square.  Indians in red ponchos which has the same visual effect of a fiesta about to begin, although so far all the Indians we have seen appear to be habitually dour.  The weather is warm and sunny and the plaza and streets team with life, people sitting, sleeping and selling anything and everything.  Although once the sun goes down it becomes cold very quickly.

We went and checked out some hotels and made a booking for our return trip to Cusco, or we think we did, we will find out when we come back (our Espanol is improving but far from perfect).

We had lunch at Govinda´s (excellent hare krishna vegetarian food) and wandered to the Museo del Sito de Qorikancha which we didn´t have to pay for, a miracle around here.  The museum was awful considering how beautiful and historic the site itself is.  Also when you follow the exit signs you get outside in the middle of a park which you aren't supposed to walk in or walk on the grass.  Very strange.

We went to iPeru and got information on the local bus to Pisac tomorrow (we hadn't planned on this but it sounds like fun) and where to book the entrance tickets to Machu Picchu - nothing is located in the same building here.  So off we went and got the entrance tickets so on Christmas Day we are all set to see the famous ruined Inca hacienda.

We had the usual afternoon siesta and started reading up on Bolivia, the Defat website had changed its warning and we can now travel.  This afternoon it actually started to rain so we didn't wander around too much.  We haven't seen much rain since Punta Arenas which feels like a lifetime ago.  The rain didn't ease up so we only went into San Blas for dinner and an early night as it isn't much fun wandering around in cold freezing weather.