Cusco

My first impression of Cusco was amazing. Flying in through huge mountains and landing up high at 3600m or so. As soon as we got out of the plane I could tell the air was cleaner, fresher and thinner. It felt great. The sun was shining. It was a little cool but felt nice. At the luggage pick up there was a band playing Andean music. The elevation with its thin air may have played a trick on me. I felt so giddy. Getting my luggage back may have also had something to do with my overall good feeling.

At the airport we grabbed a cab and split the ride with another backpacker that was there acclimatizing before going to the Cordillera Blanca for some mountaineering expedition. We also had a tour guide who wanted our business so was describing the different sites around town. The cab cost 4 soles for all of us but the distance was also very short. We settled into our room at the Hostal Familiar. We had a cozy but comfortable room with a sink and the bathroom and shower were public.

Walking from the front office to our room left us breathless. We were feeling the elevation already. I filtered some water as I knew I would need to drink lots that day. The temperature there was unreal. At the sun you'd cook in seconds. It was so hot. In the shade it was quite cool. While we were in our room we got a visit from the tour guide who came back to see if we were interested in anything he has to offer. We inquired about everything we wanted to do and were amazed to see that everything was at least twice as expensive as we thought. The train ride with a guide to Machu Picchu would have cost us $120 for the day. The bolleto touristco that gives you entry to most touristy spots has gone from $10 to $25 and includes fewer places. We told the dude we'll call him and so we went out to have some food. As I was standing by the room a couple of Israelis walked by. I was surprised to hear people speaking in Hebrew there.

We walked to the Plaza de Armas and then to the Plaza San Francisco and were finally convinced to go to one of the restaurants. In Cusco, as soon as you get out of the hotel you're approached by people trying to sell you stuff. There are kids and adults offering shoe-shines, finger puppets (made of wool), sweaters, cigarettes, various clothing made from Alpaca wool, postcards, etc. The only thing more annoying than all these salespeople are the restaurant hosts.

As soon as any tourist approaches a certain radius of a restaurant they're immediately harassed by some person from the restaurant trying to get you into the restaurant. It is especially bad walking on the streets surrounding the Plaza de Armas where the majority of the restaurants are. Most of the touristy restaurants offer the exact same menu for the exact same prices. Making a choice is nearly impossible sometimes as they're all equally bad. They all offer a touristy menu for very cheap that includes a lot of bad food or you can order some other bad food from their a la carte menu. We found that the best restaurants were those that didn't try to get your attention or those that were highly recommended in the guidebooks. We made the mistake to not go for these kinds of restaurants for the first few days and regretted it.

Our first lunch in Cusco was in some Italian restaurant at the Plaza de Armas. I recall feeling as though I was high on something, suffering the first effects of the elevation. I got a vegetarian lasagna that turned out to have more cheese than vegetables and Sophie ordered some other pasta that turned out to have meat in it so I ended up eating some of it instead of her. The meat was ground beef that was extremely gross. The waiter joked that it was guinea pig…

Neither of us had much of an appetite so we barely touched the food. We then headed back to the hotel for a nap. The nap turned out to be a mistake as we both got really bad headaches from the altitude. Sophie convinced me to go out that night and we found a nice little French restaurant. On the way I heard Hebrew all over the streets. It seems the main tourists in Cusco are from Israel. I found it a bit strange to hear more Hebrew than Spanish. At the French restaurant I had a hot chocolate and Sophie had a Mate de Coca. We both felt immediately better and our headaches were gone. My giddiness returned and I had this amazing calming feeling wash over me. The hot chocolate reminded me of my grandma and the taste of the hot chocolate was similar to the one she used to make me. I had a strange wave of emotions wash through me as I was reminded of the town I was born in and my grandparents that raised me while I was there. A strange sense of calm and happiness I rarely experience.

I slept great that night. In the morning Sophie wanted to go look at some of the other travel agencies to shop around for some better tours. We first tried one of the bike shops and accidentally woke someone who was sleeping on the floor there. Next place we asked for any bike tours they had. They described one where you bike on the streets and then finally hike through the jungle. The way she described it seemed so boring we had no interest in doing it. The third place was one recommended by our guidebook called Erick's Adventures. They had a trek leaving the next day for five days ending at Machu Picchu crossing over a 4650m pass on the way. The pictures from it were amazing so we got very excited. It seemed perfect but I was a little concerned about that pass. Seemed a bit too high for us after a day and a half at 3600m. The price for it was $250. It included 5 days of breakfast, lunch and dinner with our own cook, two English speaking guides and a muleteer. Heavy packs carried by mules for 3 days and by us for the fourth. A stay in a hostel at Aguas Calientes on the fourth night and entrance fees to Machu Picchu and train back to Cusco. We had a quick chat about it and decided to go for it. We arranged for storage at the hotel for some of our luggage and headed back and paid for the trip. Another person was signing up for the same trip so he would be one of people trekking with us along with two others who signed up a day before.

In the afternoon we walked around Cusco, trying to avoid getting run over by the many Ticos (small Korean car). Walking in the sun was unbearable and drained us. Walking in the shade was much more tolerable but it got too cold if you stayed too long. We walked near Koricancha and Sophie wanted to go in to visit it. I wasn't too excited. Two tour buses stopped at the entrance and dozens upon dozens of people were lined up to get in. I don't like crowds so it took a bit of convincing to get me to go. Once in we managed to get away from the crowds and I found it quite interesting. Koricancha used to be an old Inca temple built in their amazing style of fitting large stones together that I found quite artistic. The temple was used for some sort of rituals and once the Spanish invaded they tore some of it down and build a church on top of it within its walls. There are places where the Inca masonry ends and the Spanish masonry begins. Quite odd. The church was damaged many times by earthquakes and had to be rebuilt while the Inca walls remained intact with little to no damage. There was a great view over Cusco from the Temple.

In the evening we met up with Barry (the Briton that would join us on the Salkantay trip) at a restaurant above the tour guide's office. We had some huge meals and waited for someone from their office to come describe our trek for us. They were about an hour late and badly prepared as the printouts they had were from a different trip and they kept describing the wrong things to us. The briefing was less than useful. The person describing the trip ended up being our guide at Machu Picchu…to our great dissapointment…

In the morning we left for our Salkantay trip and returned to Cusco 6 days later. The day we came back I felt strong and very well acclimatized. It took no effort to walk uphill with big packs on our back. We watched a military parade in the square and kept saying no to taxis offering us rides to Pisac for the great market. We spent the next two days exploring more of Cusco and relaxing after our long trek. We were glad to finally leave.

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