Bus journey up through Inca land
Trip Start
Jun 11, 2008
1
276
349
Trip End
May 14, 2009
Cusco,
Peru
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
The bus company was called Tourismo Mer and was pretty new. This was good because the bus was less than half full so we all got double seats each. This was unlike the Lonely Planet famous Inka Express, which was packed to the limit. All companies do the same thing with the same facilities for the same price, so I'm glad we chose Tourismo in the end.
The bus left at 7.30am and we immediately got some free coffee & tea. In fact, you could have as much tea, coffee, coke, Inka Cola and water as you wanted throughout the whole day. There was even a stewardess, Candi, who served it to you in your seat - like it.
On board was also a bilingual guide called Dante and he was brilliant. He seemed to have a real passion for his country and told us absolutely everything we needed to know about everything along the way. As it was a small group, this made it even better for getting fuller information of everything we saw.
Around 9ish we arrived at Pukara which had a beautiful old church and a nice museum. In the museum were artefacts from a nearby old Inca site. There was some really good stuff in here, but in most areas you were unable to take photographs. Again, our bus guide took us round the museum personally, to explain everything to us and what it signified. Most of the statues actually depict the way human sacrifices were made and how there could possibly have been some cannibalism involved!
We were here for nearly an hour before heading off to our next destination. We arrived at La Raya, which means The Line, just after 11am. We were now at 4335 metres above sea level and had some great views of snow capped mountains. There were also some Llama's and Alpaca's around as this was a regular stop off point for tourists.
We only stayed here about 15 minutes before heading off to Sihuana where we arrived just after 12 noon. This was our lunch stop where we gout soup, chicken & rice and cake & coffee. All very nice. We then had a relax outside for 10 minutes getting some photo's of a very frisky Llama - it almost mounted Helen at one stage!!
Around 1pm we set off on a 5-10 minute journey to Raqchi. Here there are some fantastic old Inca ruins including the remains of the grand Wiracocha Temple. This was an amazing structure. We also got to see some of the old houses that were lived in and the huge food stores that they had built. Lorna wants a couple of these food stores building back home - one for chocolate and one for wine!!
Around the whole site was a huge wall built to protect them from any invasions - it really is an amazing piece of construction. We spent about an hour here as there was so much to see.
Around 3.30pm we arrived at our last stop off before Cusco. This place was called Andahuaylillas which was home to the San Pedro Church also known as the Cusquenian Sistine Chapel. Inside the church was amazing with all the many murals and was full of gold and silver. You weren't allowed to take photo's inside, but the sights were fantastic. Maybe we can get some images from the internet.
After we had about 30mins in Andahuaylillas, we set off for our final one hour journey to Cusco.
Upon arrival, we jumped in a taxi with Meghan (Canadian) and Jerome (Australian) to go to our hostel - Loki Hostel.
We had a double room booked here for 6 nights before we do the Inca Trail for 4 days. Our room was lovely and had a fantastic hot shower in the ensuite! The hostel itself is a massive restored old building and really quirky. It's got a really good atmosphere as well.
We met Meghan & Jerome around 7.30pm in the Loki bar for a beer before heading down to Paddy Flaherty's Irish Bar to meet Rod & Helen and to get some nosh. Lorna had a Philly steak baguette and I had a cottage pie.
Around 10pm, Meghan & Jerome bottled it and headed back to the hostel. The other 4 of us decided to go out and party. We first went to the Mushroom Bar where the evening started off quite responsibly. Cocktails were consumed including a rainbow coloured Machu Picchu - damn fine stuff. We also had a great view of the main square from here.
As we moved on to the next bar, we kept getting offered free drinks vouchers for different bars. We obviously took up these offers and that's really where things started to go downhill!! Some of the bars we went to included Mama Africa, Ukukus, Mythology and Roots. The music varied from 80's to house to drum & base.
I apparently needed to work on my Michael Jackson routine after taking over the dance floor with my Billie Jean moves!!
All in all we had an absolutely fantastic night out with Rod & Helen and we finally managed to get back to our hostel after 4.30am!! People were actually up and ready to leave to go trekking - bugger!!
I am not expecting too much activity tomorrow!!
