New Year in Cusco
Trip Start
Dec 29, 2008
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Trip End
Jan 07, 2008
Cusco, Peru
Thursday, January 1, 2009
Having had a shower and crashed into bed I woke up early doors to get to the airport headed to Cusco. Humberto, faithful Humberto, was sitting in the cab outside as arranged to drive me.
Arriving at the airport I was told my flight was overbooked and I had to take a flight 2 hours later. This is not a good thing but I am learning that being impetuous and putting your foot down DOES work. I sighed and said I really had to get my flight and could I not be upgraded "or something" to get my normal flight. The cute check in chick walks off with my passport (hmmmmmmmm....) and comes back 10 minutes later saying best they can do is check me in stand by for my flight and I cross fingers and toes that someone doesn't show up. No sweat, I'm wearing sandals so toes can be crossed. I am escorted to the gate and all the cute boarding chicks are informed of my situation. And, yep, I get on my flight (beggars can't be choosers I sadly don't get a window seat) but then our flight is delayed by 2 hours anyway....so good thing I DID insist otherwise I'd have been in Lima international for about 5 hours! I look around and I see people with back packs and hiking gear and it's really becoming real the whole trek thing.
So I land in Cuzco, awesome to land into mountains like that...I look for my pick up, searching the mass of short, peruvian taxi drivers for a sign with my name but no luck. That's ok thought because I end up getting in a cab with William (weird, don't ask, but that was his name!) and no sooner had we hit the mud, pot'hole road out of the airport to Cuzco than he's bringing out an organised file of everything i really "have to do" including a "city tour" that day and a sacred valley tour the next day. At one point I'm asking too many questions so we pull over suddenly from this sort of high way (Cusco is WAY bigger than one might think), lots of horns go off behind us, and I'm sold. So getting into the city we stop to pick up my boleto turistico, a single ticket worth 8 days that is the only way of getting into 16 different sites...I'm literally handing over money to him as he hops out of the cab having pulled over on curbs to pick up all my tickets. We then speed to my hotel where I have about 5 minutes to dump my bag and run back out headed to the plaza de armas (errr, about a 0.5 minute walk from my hotel but at this point William has adopted "la abogada portuguesa" and refuses to do anything but personally escort me). As we're driving I'm taking pics of kids in colourful andean clothing with token lama's in toe (one soon realises Cusco is a bit like walt disney, and kids and grown women with plaits tied together at the ends are the equivalent of mickey and minnie mouse etc...more on this later) and William notices my sandals and flimsy cotton cardigan and says he's not sure I'm dressed appropriately. I should point out it was about 27 degrees in Lima and it's a summer's day in Cusco so I, in my endless optimism, shrug and say "por supuesto! adelante" eager to finally SEEEEEEE something. So our tour guide arrives and we're all piled into a bus. Tour guide picks up the mike and introduces himself yada yada, I chat with the bunch of argentine guys who took the "cool kids sit in the back of the bus" seats with me and then....we're all piled off the bus to walk back up the cathedral steps we had just been on to walk into the cathedral. okiiiiiiiiiiiii. So in we go.... ok, beautiful cathedral but i'm still uncomfortable about the fact that I'm looking at catholic influences by the Spanish opressors...this is not the Inca stuff I was hoping for. Anyhoo, I learn about how the INcan depiction of Christ on the cross differs, and it's true: whilst the Catholic depiction is rather female and frail in frame, the Incan dude is rather stacked (if that is appropriate), he's also wearing a longer "skirt" and instead of looking up at the skies he is looking down at the Earth because for the Incan's all starts with the Mother Earth or Pachamama. There is also often a Sun depicted behind him because the Sun, or Inti, is all important to the Incas.
We move through the Cathedral and see fresco's and the Incan version of the Giaconda whose eyes do indeed follow you as you walk around. We see the painting of the last supper and how Judas is clutching a bag of money under the table and apparently he is said to look like Francisco Pizzaro (the head honcho of Spanish conquest of the area). We also note the last supper has papaya and other exotic fruits on the table as well as the loved guinea pig with all four paws facing up. So there it is, there IS some locality to all of this.
As we're walking through it starts...you notice a noise and it gets louder and you realise a hail storm has kicked up outside. Suddenly those kids pestering you for one sole for a plastic colourful poncho are your best friend as you head out of the cathedral. Looking glam in poncho we walk a few quadras or blocks to the Inca museum. We learn about the triangular structure of Incan architercture, their amazing ability to work stone blocks into perfectly symmetrical blocks that will withstand two major earthquakes and yet there is no mortar between the blocks. We see much more of INCAN stuff, this is more like it!
Sadly the rest of our tour to two ruin sites is cancelled due to the bad weather. So, I head back to my hotel, grab my jacket and don my trainers and hit the market where I pick up nothing, just because I'm not convinced at all this is all handicraft given a zillion stores sell the self-same Tumi (the Inacn major god) earrings and the alpaca wool seems factory made. Anyhoo, I then treat myself to possibly the worst cafe con leche ever, with bits of powdered milk yet to dissolve floating neatly on the top. I hate to sound despondent but at this point my spirit is waning. I walk pretty much the whole city centre and it IS lovely with it's narrow streets but it is a tourist fest with streets littered with agencies offering everything from horseriding to water rafting in the area and every other store is selling trekking gear and every other face is a back packer or tourist or otherwise a local child dressed up for the photo opportunity with a tourist.
I crash and burn AGAIN at 8pm....was supposed to be a short nap before dinner with Jeremy and his crew and Melina but I woke up at 6am slightly peeved with myself! I wasn't sure WIlliam would show up at 8.15 to pick me up for my Sacred Valley tour...I'm wondering when I got so silly that I handed over money and was happy to get no ticke in return but at this point I'm happy to be optimistic. And he DOES show up, gives me a hug and says he worried about me in my sandals and laughed when I laughed it off. It's another bus I'm piled into where Patricia, an Irish girl whose quit her job and travelling for 6 months latches onto the only other lone female traveller she's met since her journey began here in Peru.
We head to Pisaq which is...stunning...though I have had no altitude sickness (better safe than sorry though, I've been drinking lots of coca leaf tea which goes free at the hotel) but dear mother of god your heart and lungs feel it as we walk the mountain to the ruins. I can't tell you how beautiful the Andes are. I won't try...suffice to say, beautiful. I should point out we're blessed with sun and good weather with only brief showers (my pink poncho is my new best friend). We then head back to the bus and hit stop number 2, Ollantatambo (err, speling, I'm rushing) which involves very steep steps up terraces for farming where you can see a a mountain face where there is a definitive Inca profile (hard to explain, photos will do the trick) and a phenmenal temple at the top which was sadly left unfinished when the Incas fled due to the Spanish invasion.... we're taken to a spot where we can see the quarry where the Incas got their rock. Your respect for the Incas can nothing but grow exponentially when you're pointed to a cliff face about 2km as the crow flies away, across a river. they used troops of 5000 to 15000 men to carry rocks carved out of that rock face (who knows how, talk about cliff hanging maestros). We then head back to the bus and by this point Michelle and Stacey, two truly lovely American girls, have joined what I'll call my "crew" for simplicity). We bundle back in the bus to head to CHinchero...which was worth while inasmuch as we got a visual demonstration of how these Peruvians dye their textiles so brightly from all sorts of natural resources...then there's the standard stall where we can help the local economy, but my crew and I are less than exhuberant about the Church we're filed into. Not least because Michelle, Stacey and I are all starting our inca trail the next day and have our induction back in town at 7pm.
Our bus speeds along these unlit mountain roads (BRACE BRACE!) and we get back just in the nick of time quickly arranging to meet in the Plaza de Armas to ring in the New Year.
My induction was essentially a very concerned Ashling asking for assurance that she is appropriately equipped. This guy is super chilled, todo bien, todo bien, and ends asking me if I want to be picked up from the club or bar I ring in New Year at. errr...no :)
New Year in Cuzco? Essentially a pyromaniacs wet dream. You can buy fireworks of all sizes for next to nothing almost anywhere. There are people running around lighting these up and, pisco sour induced or not, sort of waving them around waist level and then remembering to point towards the sky. in a word: memorable. In a few more, the most life threatening New Year ever, but the spirit is great and everyone is donning yellow, the Peruvian colour for good luck.
I call it an early night as my wake up call is 4am to hit the road towards kilometro 82 and finally start what I came for.
et voila!
