Day 1 – Bus Day
Waking up on the bus we still had pretty much a whole day to
go, this wasn’t helped by a stop to change one of the tyres!
During the journey, we just watched the scenery, did some
reading, watched films and had the odd nap.
We stopped around 2pm for a bit of lunch, as there had been a very quick
turn around at the start of the journey we guessed they had not sorted out the
on board catering. The lunch stop was at
a filling station with a café attached, where we got ½ hour to choses a dish from
a choice of cold lookie likey’s on the counter, to be fair the food was pretty
tasty and filling.
We were then back on the bus for the rest of the journey to
Cusco where we finally arrived at just gone 7pm, 21 hours after we started (or
23 if you included the original 2 hour delay).
It was slightly disappointing as we were hoping to catch up with David
(Burma & Thailand fame) for a couple of hours before he left Cusco, but due
to the delay’s we missed him.
At the bus terminal we quickly got a taxi to take us to our
hostel, which was around a ½ hour drive away.
The hostel itself was in a little courtyard just off of the main plaza
and we had paid slightly above our budget for as we knew we would like a nicer room
after two nights of night buses.
Although it did not have any outside windows the room was fairly
spacious, had nice bedding and what looked like a pretty decent bathroom.
Having spent practically 24 hours on a bus you know what we
needed, locking up our bags we headed out in search of a bar. Our first impressions of Cusco (the Inca
capital, now the tourist capital!!) were good as the main plaza looked great
with a massive cathedral in it.
A quick look around the surrounding streets and then we
found an Irish bar (the highest in the world apparently) where we popped in for
a drink. Being charged almost double for
a beer than in Arequipa we thought we were being ripped off so we left in
search of somewhere more reasonable.
After a quick internet search we found, Norton Rats Bar,
which was just around the corner and had balconies overlooking the square where
you could smoke, perfect. Well it would
have been apart from the price of the beer was exactly the same, it appears
that drinks in Cusco are going to be more expensive….bloody tourists!!!
The bar itself was pretty good as it was a Norton Motorcycle bar with biker
t-shirts on the walls and flags on the ceilings, also playing decent rock
music. So we stayed here for a few
drinks before popping back just around the corner to our hostel for the night.
Day 2 – Pear Shaped!
What we thought would be a really comfortable nights sleep
was still being disrupted by a bit of altitude breathlessness, but also by
being next to the breakfast room and noisy staff. So we were up earlier that we wanted, but it
gave us a chance to get showered before breakfast.
Breakfast was one of the best we have had for a while, with
cereals, bread rolls, choice of eggs and fresh fruit. Once fully fed we headed out to the main
square and took some pictures before heading though to another smaller square
where we were going to join another free walking tour.
We located the guide, Elvis, and soon we were off on another
walk about, this time the guide said it was going to be mostly historic and
soon we were at a large cathedral and being told all about Baroque
architecture.
From the church, we were led down some streets until we
reached the main market and Elvis then took us through there pointing out
different produce. If there’s one thing
we do know about Peru now is that they have over 3,000 varieties of potato.
A couple more sites later and we found ourselves in the main
plaza where we were told all about the big cathedral and the large JC statue on
the overlooking hills, apparently gifted as a bit of a bribe from Cusco’s
Polish migrant population.
Heading down the side street where our hostel was located
in, Elvis pointed out original Inca walls which were large blocks that were
slightly inclined to withstand earthquakes.
When the Spanish (who Elvis did not have many good words for) came,
apart from building large churches on the Inca temple sites, they also knocked
down buildings, which they then built upon, just using the original base at ,the
bottom of the original Inca walls.
The Spanish also knocked down Inca walls thinking Inca gold
would be hidden within, however the Inca’s may have had a bit of a chuckle as
the Spanish houses could not take the odd earthquake or two.
Halfway down this alleyway there was a doorway that led into
a large courtyard which appeared to be a big tourist trap. However we were introduced to a bunch of
llama/El Paca’s and told all about them, it also gave us a chance to get up
close and personal with them. I
particularly liked the ones with dreadlocked coats.
Our final stop of the tour was a museum which was basically
the ruins of an Inca palace. Elvis really got into his stride here and to be
honest it was literally just the foundations you could see, with water channels
running through the complex. However,
Elvis must have talked for around an hour, telling us about every Inca king,
how the Inca’s would have cut the stone blocks, grew fruit, built houses,
etc. Very passionate and informative,
but a bit too much info for a walking tour.
After the tour had finished Shell and I went in search of a
tour agency so we could look at trips to Machu Picchu and also a jungle
trip. We found an agency that had been
recommended by someone the previous day and got some prices, but we thought we
would compare it to another agency we had read about.
As it was gone one, on our way to the other agency we
stopped off at the Norton bar.
Unfortunately whilst we sat there we got talking to an Aussie honeymoon
couple (6 month trip) and we really hit it off.
Suddenly two beers turned into three beers and you can guess the rest,
the next thing we knew it was early evening and we hadn’t booked the trips that
we were supposed to.
Too many beers later we felt some hunger pangs so we said
our goodbyes and walked down a nearby restaurant, where I’m pretty sure we had
some Llama in green sauce and a lamb/goat dish, but don’t quote me on it. After which we headed home for the night.
Day 3 – Sorted Stuff
For some reason we did not quite make breakfast, so instead
we woke up later, got ready and headed out with purpose. First a quick trip to the 2 hour laundry
around the corner to deposit some clothes.
We then had a bit of walk to find the other agency that we
were supposed to visit the day before.
At the agency we got the comparison prices of the two trips we wanted to
do, then we went to a nearby café for a coffee whilst we decided what we wanted
to do.
After a small discussion we decided to go back to that
agency and just book the Machu Picchu trip for the following day as they had
the better deal. If the trip was good,
we would come back and book the Jungle trip when we returned.
Booking sorted we then had a wander around town for a while
before picking up our laundry and heading back to the hostel to relax for the
afternoon. The afternoon was spent
sleeping (Shell) and blogging (Glenn) and watching a bit of tv.
As we had our big trip booked for the next day we just went
around the corner to the Norton Rats bar when we had a drink and evening meal
before going home for and early night.
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