Rahs, Dialogues and Partying in Cusco
Trip Start
Jan 23, 2007
1
22
24
Trip End
Ongoing
Lima,
Lima,
Peru
Friday, May 2, 2008
Cusco was good fun, its a great city, geographically huge but as far as any gringo is concerned the main facilities are all concentrated into a small area navigatable on even the least sober of legs. Being an ex-pat hotspot it has no end of home comforts including my long wanted baked beans but after 2 consecutive mornings of fry ups I soon got bored, craving having been quashed. It seemed that I was the only traveller in the city not visiting the Inca stronghold of Machu Picchu, part of the reason why the city sucks you in: Everyone is in such high spirits having either being on the brink of or just finished what for some people is the main reason for such a trip. As a consequence it also has no shortage of those tour groups and mature holiday-goers whom I have grown to not resent so much! Although as I sat in a local restaurant chatting to one of its employees on his lunchbreak (in SPANISH!!! Just thought I would throw that in) I couldnt help but listen to the English buffoon on the table opposite me and considering reverting back to old values. He was attempting to order and the conversation went something like this:
Spanish-speaking waitress: Hello, what would you like
English-speaking buffoon: Chicken and chips please
S: Pardon
E: Chicken and Chips
S (having presumed he wants the dish everyone seems to have): Would you like the breast or the leg?
E (recognising the language barrier goes for that English Ex-pat favourite solution): JUST(pause)CHICK-(pause)-KEN(pause)AND(pause)CHIPS(pause)PLEASE
This continued a little longer before the waitress gave up and gave him exactly what he deserved, whatever he bloody got! Call me cruel but how much effort and consideration does it take to learn at the least "pollo y papas fritas por favor" when you know you are in a country where education is low and English is not commonly spoken (especially when the words are dotted all over the picture guide walls of the restaurant).
There are however plenty of locals in Cusco who can speak English and one particularly unique group that leads me to being unable to resist making comparisons to Thailand... even though I have never visited this Back-gapper fave. I have met many male travellers in Cusco who are absolutely terrorfied of falling foul of a notorious group of girls known as the Mama Afrikas girls. These girls frequent the local bar/nightclub of Mama Afrika hellbent on picking up gringo men in order to either bleed them dry in drink purchases (a bit like the leg cafes of Santiago but without the formalities) or to bed them in order to steal their wallet and whatever else they fancy. As a consequence there is a constant air of paranoia in the mind of the traveller when a local girl seems to take an interest. I bet the hideously overweight guy I saw in Mythology (another notorious one) couldnīt believe his luck as he danced with a local chica dressed in an attire that (if you knew a bit about local customs) screamed prostitute and I bet the chica couldnīt believe her luck when she got hold of his wallet.
Cusco was only the second hostel Ive stayed as claiming to be a īparty hostelīsomething I had tended to avoid prior and Iīm glad I didnt avoid them in Cusco in La Paz. The hostel I stayed in in Cusco had a great staff of absolutely mental gringo bar staff living a lifestyle comparable to club reps (but with less sleep). One night it was ninja night and the staff and a few guests dressed up as teenage mutant ninja turtles (green body paint included) and after many drinks took us all suitably face painted (with a few exceptions who got slightly too carried away with writing abuse on their friends foreheads) in what was one of many brilliant nights out. What was unique about this place was that the bar staff working alongside some equally mental locals. In particular a chef nicknamed Loco who told me that in his sparetime he liked to cook with ketamine-by the end of my stay he had been sacked, the hash brownies he cooked for 2 guests being the last straw I think. The two guests he did this for were two other characters, they had originally booked 4 nights but by the time I was there they had been there for a month. They worked like clockwork, spending most the day watching DvDs in the hostel and then smoking cannabis by the shower at the same time every evening. That is not to say they had a dull stay, one of the guys had managed to drive an off-road buggy off the edge of a 30 foot drop and make the local news. When they finally got round to checking out they could not afford to pay off their bar tab and had to stay another 5 nights before their parents could bail them out, all of this documented on the hostel walls along with hundreds of other marker pen-scribbled warnings/tips/comments, my favourite being "f**k the trek, get the train!" a warning from a weary post-Inca Trailer! These two guys were part of a great party of travellers (included a guy called Thorfinn, great just for the name what sick Londoners call their son Thorfinn?!)who had found themselves stuck in the hostel for a good 3-5 weeks, who made the stay such an interesting/amusing one.
Unfortunately not all the characters I met in Cusco were quite as likeable, in particular a gang of insular, rude guys some of which I recognised as extras from a reality television programme dubbed īthe real OCī following the lives of some spoilt rich kids in Cheshire, one of the main characters was also staying at the hostel although he was a nice chap maybe because it seemed I was the only person sad enough to have recognised him. They are part of a general group of travellers out here who-for monetary reasons-are probably in the majority for people my age, mostly travelling on the back of Mummy and Daddyīs credit cards, incrdibly frustrating for someone like me who earnt every penny that got me out here, but I like to think it has made it a more enjoyable/appreciable experience because of it not that I would turn down someone paying for my trip (Russian Oligarchs take note). I knew Iīd met the archetypal example of such people one night in Cusco when I got talking to a couple out on a balcony at Mama Afrikas. This is how the conversation deterioated and swiftly ended:
Idiot: Where are you from?
Me: A place near Cambridge
I: Oooo then you must know " "
Me: Cant say I do
I: Heīs like 23rd in line to the throne
Ashamedly, I didnīt do a lot in Cusco other than party and buy a hell of a lot of souvenirs but after all these months on buses navigating a whole continent I have become a bit tired of the practice especially as home is so imminent. I canīt wait to get home and see my family and friends, canīt wait to have cereal for breakfast instead of flippinībread and jam, canīt wait to be on a continent where the Petshop boys, Aerosmith and Bon Jovi infest the musical atmosphere of every shop/restaurant/internet cafe and cant wait to not have to endure another excruciating conversation with some spoilt, daddy-sponging idiot . On the other hand I am going to miss travelling through some of the most spectactular scenerey in the world, paying 2 pound for a bed and breakfast, all the amazing local cuisines that simply do not exist in England, all the crazy local music you can hear out here and all the amazing, unique characters I have met out here. The choice is a tough one. Fortunately it has already been made.
