Hostal Plaza de Armas Cusco

Sunday, May 20, 2007 The indigenous people come into Cajabamba for a street market on Sunday. From about 6am strings of mules or donkeys laden with veggies came past our bedroom window. But after breakfast nothing else seemed to be happening so we bought 9am bus tickets to Huamacucha. The Andes company bus was an hour late leaving. It was interesting scenery on a very rough narrow road to Huamachuco. Three hours to do 53 kilometers. There were very narrow wooden bridges over many small ravine...

Last night I left the internet place and went straight to the restaurant attached to the hostal where I was staying on the Plaza de Armas. My guidebook listed 2 restaurants in Celendín. The one it recommended highly seems to be gone. I went to the other one, which even my book admits is not the most hygienic. Yeesh, that´s for sure. It wasn´t horrible, but not too clean. I ate my entire dinner because I was so hungry, but hoped it wouldn´t come back to haunt me. And it was really inexpensive ...

Guess what I did this morning? Took a big ole bath. First, some history. The Inca empire had been established for less than 100 years as the overwhelming power when the Inca (king) Huayna Cápac died suddenly in 1527 of a smallpox epidemic brought by the Spanish. His two sons, Huáscar and Atahualpa, subsequently engaged in a brutal civil war over power...Atahualpa won and as the new Inca king he planned to return to his home city of Quito (capital of present-day Ecuador) to rule over his ever-...

Sadly, I have virtually nothing to report today! I woke up with a very mild flu and I did NOTHING. I went to bed last night feeling a little crummy, but thrilled that "School of Rock" was on TV. I love that movie! Things went downhill fast overnight and I woke up this morning feeling feverish and very achy. I stayed in bed all morning and slept on and off, only getting up to shoo away the boy that came to clean my room. I finally got up at 1:00 pm, took a hot shower and forced myself to go ou...

By the time we arrived in Arequipa it was pretty late so we checked into a hotel and hit the hay. The next day we went in search of some breakfast and ended up in the Plaza de Armas. It is a beautiful square with an enormous cathedral. Arequipa is called the "White City" because most of the city´s colonial buildings are built from a light coloured volcanic rock called sillar that dazzles in the sun. That afternoon after a few world cup matches we visited Monasterio de Santa Catalina. Founded ...

Spending most of the afternoon cleaning and checking my glider got me excited about flying again. Thinking that the damage could have been much (,much) worse I headed to Western Union to make my advance payment for the SAT / SIV clinic in Salta. I had a nice takeaway lunch from the cafe 'La Yunta' in the sunny Plaza de Armas. Heading back to the hostel, I chilled for a while in the common lounge, and chatted with Rachel, a beautiful sculptor from Wales for a long time. Talking about anything ...

In the morning we got up at a reasonable time. There was only lukewarm water but >I had to wash my hair anyway. Breakfast at the Allyu café. Then Caren and Megan went with Marta to get their plane tickets to Arequipa. Our paths were now to go separate ways. Marta reconfirmed my ticket to Lima. Megan wanted to get a cash advance on her credit card so we went to the banking sector. This was in the days when there weren't ATMs much of any place and certainly not in Cuzco. No bank would advanc...

Ráno v Nazce se předhánějí naháněči různých hotelů. Nakonec se necháváme jedním nalákat, ale dovoze nás do hostelu, kde zrovna mají plno. Nastěstí hned vedle je dalsí, kde mají volno.. Chceme pokoj s koupelnou, ale musíme si na něj počkat, az uklidí. Zatím dostáváme jiný pokoj, ale vzhledem k tomu, ze koupelna je hned vedle, uz neměníme. Výlet na pohřebistě v Chauchille si domlouváme přímo v hostelu. Dospáváme, potom si kupujeme něco k snídani a v deset hodin uz nás čeká nás průvodce, pohodov...

Ráno jdeme na nás známý autobus směr Ica, na místní poměry čekáme poměrně dlouho, nez se bus naplní, dokonce i někteří domorodci se dozadují, aby autobus uz nečekal a jel. Cestu nám jako obvykle otravuje nějaký béčkový film, tentokrát ovsem v anglickém znění s anglickými titulky - místní protestují, ale zřejmě to nikdo neumí přepnout (filmy se v autobusech zásadně poustějí z DVD, video je dávno překonané...). Zajímavý je taky boj s konkurenčním autobusem, který vyjel zhruba ve stejnou dobu a ...

The flight to Cusco afforded some nice views of the Peruvian Cordillera. I think I was surprised to find that Peru was mostly desert and arid mountains. For some reason the image I had of Peru was just jungle and tribesmen, not sandboarding on dunes (a popular thing to do in Ica, a place that I didn't have time to visit). You have to go farther east into the Amazon to find the stereotypical image of Peru. Upon arrival at the airport, we got our first taste of what Cusco would be like. We were...