Cuzco

  Cusco, Peru
Sunday, November 2, 2008

We travelled overnight from Arequipa to Cuzco. First of all, I would like to applaud the bus company, Cruz del Sur, for the service provided. When you arrive at the bus station, you have your own lounge. Then a "ground hostess" welcomes you on board after checking your tickets. The really act as you were on a plane: checking if your seat belts are fastened, making the announcement about the emergency exit (we were on the second floor, so I ll guess we would just have to break the windows). We had a meal and the seats were comfortable even in 2nd class. Great for a 10h trip.

We arrived at the crack of dawn on November 2nd in Cuzco. The town is about 3,300m high and so far we are fine (Thanks to the Diamox maybe). The city is in the mountains. It is so different to see trees and grass on the mountains after having only seen desert for over a week. After arriving at the hotel, we slept until late morning (it is hard to get a real good night sleep in the bus) and then decided to go explore the town. There is the usual Plaza de armas, with colonial arcades surrounding the plaza, which was the heart of the ancient Capital.

girls with lamb

We also visited Cuzco´s cathedral, which took almost 100 years to build. There are three churches/ basilicas in one. This cathedral and its paintings explain really well how the Spanish were teaching religion to the locals by mixing religious symbols to things locals already knew. For example, there was a picture of the last supper. Jesus and the apostles were eating exotic fruits like papaya and were sharing a guinea pig as a main meal (yes, really!) Guinea pig is a meal served for sharing. That is why bread was also included in the picture for the catholic equivalent. Besides, the amount of details and gold (22 carats) in all the ornaments and alters are just unbelievable. Everything went to the Church.

You can feel that Cuzco is colder. When the sun goes behind the clouds, it is freezing. I will put more on tomorrow. After stopping for a hot chocolate. We passed in the street , admiring the Inca walls and finally visited The Santo Domingo church.  This is a colonial building with Inca walls, which resisted to earthquakes in the past. It has a bit of a strange look.Food in Cuzco is quite pricey. You get better quality for less in Arequipa. We ended up in a cute place for dinner, though. It was like a kid school, with toys and stuffed animals everywhere. Food was not fantastic but they give some of their profit for charity, so it was a good cause.

On the 03/11/08, we went to Ollantaytambo, 1h30 away from Cuzco. It is a great example of Inca city planning, with terraces and a fortress on top. It is also well know because the Spaniards lost a battle here. A lot of climbing, though. We wanted to take it easy on the first day..Guess that is out of the window!We were a bit out of breath and an old English couple gave us some coca leaves to chew. It is quite disgusting and we did not feel any different but it was nice of them. We continued our ascension to the top of the mountain where we had a great view! The, we went to Moray, which are also terraces but in a circle. The Incas used them as as an agricultural  laboratory. It is pretty amazing all the techniques already developed for astronomy and agriculture. Close to Moray, was the Salinas , where thousands  of salt pans have been harvested since Inca times. We saw the guys working. It reminded us of Pamukkale in Turkey.

salineras

It was the end of the day and  people were bringing back the cattle from the fields to their house. You needed to wait for the sheep and donkeys to cross the path to go on with your car. A bit like in Ireland! Finally, we went to Chichero. The village mixes  colonial architecture and Inca ruins. We saw the sunset there with the mountains with eternal snow on the background. We are still are not suffering from altitude sickness, ..fingers crossed! We went as up as 4000m .What we wanted to do in 2 days we ended up doing it in one. The guys there drive like maniacs in the mountains. At each turn, you slide from one side of the car to the next! Pretty mad. And still beeping for no reason! By the end of that day we were totally exhausted from all the walking. For dinner, the rule was get something to eat on our block. We could not face going any further.

cliff hanger in Pisac

On 04/11/08, We decided to go to Pisac. We could not find the bus to go there . We only found a manky warehouse which was stinking, and a guy pissing within a couple of meters from us. We decided to take a collectivo taxi with a couple (Mel from Germany and Rob from New Zealand) to go there.  The fortress is based on top of the mountain, with a plunging gorge on each side. We could hear music coming from the village, probably from a school(at this very minute there is a guy who is breathing reeeally heavily at the computer next to me, I don't know if I should rescue him or slap him). We knew that we could go down to the village by a walk in the mountain. Mel, who could speak fluent Spanish asked  a local for directions. The guy in exchange as to take a picture of him with us. Then the group of kids who he was with all insisted to take a picture with us, too! One by one , we posed with each of them. It is reversed roles! -A similar thing happened the following day where a group of teenage Peruvian girls were taking loads of pictures of Sean when he was passing by. Guess they loved the freckles and the blue eyes. I could see his head getting bigger by the second!- We started our walk down to Pisac and the views were sublime! Most tourists do not do this walk and it is a shame. After a couple of hours we finally arrived to the village . It is reknown for its market but it was just loads of stands with junk.: the usual touristy stuff. Pretty disappointing. We had a bit of alpaca meat for lunch and resting our feet! That excursion took us the whole day! The end of afternoon and night was dedicated to watching TV: US elections obviously, hour after hour, looking at the polls of every state. After two years the campaign is finally over!It is now time to get down to business!I guess most of our readers will be happy with the results ( except maybe two!)

Pisac

Today (05/11/08), we wanted to stay and visit Cuzco a bit more. First we had to confirm our train to Macchu Picchu and get our bus tickets to Puno. It seems now that the strikes for Macchu Pichu will start on the 10th. And we come back on the 9th! So fingers crossed the don´t suddenly decide to start it one day before! I ll will believe when I am there! We strolled around the city, visited a few museums included in our boleto turistico ( it is a ten-day pass including loads of different sites and museums). We saw a very nice photo exhibition ( Il manquait plus que tes photos, Nico!). We took it pretty easy today, mainly because Sean was a Meunik de chez Meunik. People wanting to sell you stuff every 2 minutes is quite tiring as well. We feel like we are saying "No gracias" 1,000 times a day. That night, we were looking for somewhere to eat (Lonely Planet´s place nowhere to be found!) and we ended up in a French place that was serving raclette and fondue. We had a lovely fondue bourguignonne (the base of the first fondue caught fire!). We stuffed ourselves like geese that night. We just wanted something European for a change. On the way back we were asked all the time to buy some drugs. They were really insisting and showing us the merchandise. We thought they were working with the cops to b that obvious.

The two following days, we took it pretty easy. We walked up to the top of the town to the ruins called Saqsaywaman (Also known as sexy woman). A great view from the top and some interesting constructions. One Inca leader wanted Cusco to be like a puma. The walls of these ruins are shaped like the teeth, a river looks like the tail, etc. Even with the map from that time I could not really see it.  They must have chewed too many coca leaves. We walked through the narrow little streets of San Blas. They are really cute. 
The last day before we went to Macchu Picchu we were lucky to assist local celebrations in Cuzco. In the morning, a group of boys were having their first communion. All dressed with their white shirts and gloves, holding a holy candle, they looked really proud. Outside , there were official photographers and their colleagues taking names of the kids to be photographed. It felt like DCU after the graduation ceremony all over again (oui, avec les nuages, Delo!!). The children then walked in the streets, carrying a statue of the Virgin Mary and another one of the black Jesus. Later on, the main square was blocked for the college´s anniversary. Each class was parading in front of parents and teachers on plaza de armas. They were performing folkloric dances, with typical outfits. It looked like they have been practicing a lot! It was so colourful! A fabulous day for everyone, tourists included!

Last minute before the show