I cant catch my breath!

  Cusco, Cusco, Peru
Thursday, June 11, 2009

Luke showing off his lovely new hat!

So, Cusco should really come before the Inca Trail as we actually arrived here 3 days before we started the trek as we needed time to acclimitise to the altitude of 3300 meters but as we spent a couple of days here after the trail, it comes after it!

The bus journey from Ica was a whopping 17 hours long, but as it was overnight and we went with Cruz del Sur - the gringo favoured company with seats which recline really far back, leg rests, blankets and films in English, the time passed quite quickly. As I woke in the morning however I soon realised that I felt sick! Now what you must realise is that it takes only 1 hour to fly from LIma to Cusco but it takes over 20 hours on the bus because it is right in the middle of the mountains, and the roads to Cusco are incredibly windy. So I wasnt sure if it was travel sickness or altitude sickness that we had heard so much about, or a combination of both! It wasnt nice whatever it was though and we were glad when we finally got off the damn bus and made it to our hostel.

Approaching Cusco on the bus

So for your first couple of days at altitude you are supposed to take it easy and let your body acclimitise so all we really did was sleep, and eat for the first 24 hours! One night we ate out and I wanted to try the local delicacy - gunea pig! but found it was too expensive for our budget so I tried Alpaca instead, which is similar to a LLama. It was very tasty, and just like beef I would say!

We also paid for the Inca Trail and went shopping for necessary items - for example my fantastic alpaca hat and gloves which were to keep me warm during the cold nights - highly important as temperatures were very low in Cusco and due to be even lower on Inca trail. Total bargain at 16 soles for both = around 3 pounds!

Me with my lovely new hat and gloves

We also bought Luke´s fantastic cowboy hat, which he needed to keep the sun off him during the hot days on the Inca trail. I wasnt so sure about it myself but at 20 soles = just over 4 pounds, we were happy with another bargain!

Luke showing off his lovely new hat!

The night before the Inca trail we had a meeting at the office and met the rest of our group, who turned out to be a good bunch of people so we were lucky. Then after spending more money on altitude tablets, water purification tablets etc etc it was time for bed and ready for our 4am start!

After the Inca trail was over we returned to Cusco and slept for a good 13 hours, highly necessary!! and did some laundry, also highly necessary!! One of the guys from our group arranged for us all to meet that night for a drink, but half of the group were making tracks that day and the others just didnt turn up - so it was just me, luke and the guy Enrico. The only trouble was that Enrico is Italian and spoke barely any English, and we speak almost no Italian!! On the Inca Trail there had been another Italian guy who spoke very good English and had acted as a translator but without him we were a bit stuck! We had a few drinks though and in the end it was a good night!

Luke & his hair idol Enrico

Our last day in Cusco was actually a national holiday, Corpus Christi. Everyone in Cusco had the day off, and they all make their way to the main square where representatives from all the nearby churches walk around the square parading the Patron Saint of their church. It was good to see all the ladies in their traditional clothes and the guys carrying the really heavy statues.

Local Ladies in their finery

The Patron Saint of San Blas

Plaza de Armas again

We decided our next stop would be Copacabana in Bolivia so we went to the bus station to buy tickets. The night before the buses had been cancelled to due to road blockades but we heard that they should now be off...so we hopped on the bus to Copacabana hoping that we would have no troubles getting there...!