To Cusco: City of the Incas
Good day to you,
I hope this latest installment to my adventures find you fit and healthy.
Lynn and I are both currently enjoying the dry and sunny weather of the city of Cusco, 3,310m above sea level in the heart of Peru. Before colonial times Cusco was the ancient Inca capital and is now a thriving tourist city where we gringos (as foreigners are affectionately known here) are so numerous we seem to outnumber even the locals. The reason so many tourists flock here? Cusco is the gateway to that most famous of Inca sites, Machu Picchu.
The last episode of my travelogue saw us arriving in the city of Puno on the western shores of Lake Titicaca having crossed over from Bolivia. We spent only a couple of nights in Puno and that was enough. People go to Puno to go to Lake Titicaca and since we'd just come from there, there was absolutely no reason to hang about. We had a free day though before our bus to Arequipa the following morning and needing little incentive to leave the city we took a tour to the nearby pre-Incan sacred burial site of Sillustani. Sillustani really is the most fascinating place. I came here 6 years ago in July 2000 and was over-awed by the collosal burial towers, the biggest of which is 12m high. The towers are constructed out of huge stone blocks that fit together so prefectly that modern engineers still cannot understand how they were so accurately carved and constructed and despite numerous attempts no one has managed to replicate them.
We joined about 20 other people on the tour and but for one small annoyance we had a great afternoon wandering around the site. The annoyance I speak of was our guide who seemed to have completely the wrong idea about what it was that we had all come to see. We spent about 3 hours at Sillustani and our tour started with Mr. Guide telling us about how special this place was to the ancient civilisations of Peru; that Sillustani was sacred and that's why it was used as a burial site. All well and good, a bit of history is nice. He then went on to tell us that there was a 'special energy' in the land here and he would ensure that we all felt it before we left.
"Come with me" he said, leading us away from the other tour groups and the burial towers. He lead us up a nearby hill via a pathway to a small clearing of stones and for the next half hour had us standing in a circle in the clearing of stones with our arms out trying to "feel the power of the earth". I felt like asking him if he wanted to try and feel the power from my boot but my unusually tolerant nature made me refrain. After standing round like idiots for ages and him in the middle, eyes closed, feeling the ground (I kid you not) looking for the strongest area of energy he then gets out a crystal and dangles it about (to no obvious effect). By this stage half of us have given up listening to him and we're gazing longingly over the hill back at the burial towers and wandering if we're actually going to see them up close. I turn back to see what he's up to and find he's now picking people at random to dangle his crystal where he thinks we might feel something in the ground. In the end he gives up his search for energy and decides to talk about the stone circle instead.
"Does anyone know why the entrance to these stones is facing the north-east?" he asks.
I've had enough of this eejit. "Yes, I do" I say, "It's next to the bloody path. Less distance to walk." - I get a dig in the ribs from Lynn. "Well, I've had enough of this idiot. Come on lets go and look at those towers."
The second half of our tour was fabulous. We wandered about the ancient ruins and took some photos and pondered to ourselves about how these people had managed to build such amazing structures. Our guide, Uri Geller didn't talk to me on the way back, I'm not sure why.
We left Puno the following morning and headed south-west to the city of Arequipa. Arequipa has the most beautiful main square surrounded on all 4 sides by stunning white archways. It's also lower in altitude (2,410m) than we've spent any length of time for nearly 6 weeks so the warmer nights are very welcome. Arequipa is in a very volatile part of Peru, surrounded by many active volcanoes and sitting within an area frequented by powerful earthquakes. The last big one was in 2001.
Our hotel was called 'Posada Nueva Espana'. We found a small card for this hotel in the hotel we stayed at in Potosi, southern Bolivia. I picked it up, put it in the Arequipa section of my guidebook and promptly forgot all about it until I found it again whilst we were in Puno. I phoned up and made a reservation. Upon arrival in Arequipa, we got a taxi and then had to go through the predictable routine that Arequipan taxi drivers have become famous for:
(We get in taxi) "Good day Mr. Taxi Driver. Please take us to 'Posada Nueva Espana' on Calle Antiquilla. Number 106."
"What hotel?"
"Posada Nueva Espana"
"Where?"
"Calle Antiquilla"
"That road doesn't exist"
"Yes it does, here's the card for the hotel. Look - Calle Antiquilla, 106"
....Wait a while....
"That hotel's closed down. What about this one?" (Hands me a flyer for a hotel where if he takes me there he'll get a good commission)
"No thanks. Posada Nueva Espana, please."
"But it doesn't exist."
"Yes it does, I phoned them last night and have a reservation."
"So you don't want to go to this hotel?" (Waves flyer at me again)
"No"
After this he drives us to our hotel without any further questions. This is a scam that all the taxi drivers in Arequipa try on with newly arrived tourists as they make good money from the commission they receive by taking people to their hotel instead of the one the tourist actually wants to stay at.
Anyway, we spent 6 pleasant days in Arequipa with a 2 day trip to the Colca Canyon in the middle. Colca Canyon is twice as deep as the Grand Canyon in the USA and is home to a large number of Andean condors. The Andean condor has a massive 3m wongspan and from several good vantage points you can watch them glide past within 10 or so metres of you. Unfortunately, the thermals that the condors glide about on are at their strongest in the early hours of the morning hence the need to make this a 2 day trip. Day 1 takes us on a 5 hour bumpy mini-van journey to the little town of Chivay (north-east(ish)) of Arequipa. We get there in the mid-afternoon and spend the evening lounging about in a thermal-pool. Day 2 and we're up 05:00 in the morning for the 1 hour drive to the canyon. I took charge of Lynn's camera for the trip and took 30 or 40 photos as these immense birds swept past us.
On our last day in Arequipa I unfortunately developed another bout of stomach cramps that soon gave way to the inevitable diarrhoea. I'm up half the night and the next day I'm not in a fit state to leave the bathroom which isn't good when I have a 9 hour coach journey to Cusco ahead of me. What can I do? I knock back a couple of Imodium tablets, clench my cheeks and we head to the bus station. Atleast we've got a first class bed-seat coach to take us there so I can try to sleep....
We eventually leave Arequipa an hour late on a battered old standard bus. Our luxury bus sits next to it in the depot but it's in pieces and there's numerous legs sticking out from underneath, evidence of the mechanics trying to fix it. Our knackered old bus also has a broken gearbox that causes it to violently shudder the entire journey to Cusco. This is going to be a rough ride. By the time we arrive in Cusco 13 hours later (not the 9 hours the journey's supposed to take) it's 23:00 hours and I feel like I've got an advanced condition of Parkinson's disease I've been shook about so much. We get to our hotel and crash out for the night. Our hotel, Hotel Q'Awarina is described in our guidebook as "a delightful place, has good views and is good value". Our pokey little basement room doesn't even have a view and is barely bigger than the double bed that occupies it. It's 15 quid a night which is quite alot by Peruvian standards so the next morning we decide to pay up for the 1 night and then look for something better.
I feel slightly better this morning in the botty department. Not brilliant but better but I have another concern today. The dry air over the last couple of months has had not been good for my lips and I have suffered with minor cracks every now and again despite using lip balm in vast quantities. I've had a small crack on my lip for a few days now and this morning it was quite painful. Upon investgation in the mirror I am horrified to find that I appear to be balancing family-size cheese and tomato pizza on my lower lip. It's absolutely, shockingly enormous. Where the bloody hell has that sprung from? How am I going to eat? Even when I open my mouth to it's widest the top and bottom are still touching. And it's so, so painful. We decide I must have caught an infection in the crack on my lip from a dirty glass or something. What else can have caused it to erupt like Mount Versuvius in less than 8 hours? So, with sore butt and sore lip Lynn and the elephant man wander off to look for a new hotel. The second place we find is perfect. It's another old colonial house and we duck to go through the doorway, built in the days when everyone was 4ft tall. We have a massive room, private bathroom and it's less than half the price of the other place.
"Excellent, we're take it. We just have to nip back to the other hotel to get our bags."
On the way out I forget about the low doorway. CRACK! I now have a lump on my forehead to mirror the one on my lower lip. Yeah, that's right I can hear you all chuckling. It wasn't funny at the time, though!
So anyway, that was 4 days ago. I've been chucking back the antibiotics and the less sadistic amongst you will be pleased to know that I don't have a sore head anymore; I don't have a runny bum anymore and my lip.... well my lip still looks like you could paint an "H" and land helicopters on it but it's getting better. The problem is that every time I take a shower or have a drink or have something to eat, the scab comes off and I have to start all over but it's a smaller scab each time so you never know in a couple of months time I may look ok again!
We've been hanging around Cusco for 4 days now, enjoying the museums and local city sights. Tomorrow we set off on our 5 day trek to Machu Picchu. We're not doing the Inca Trail, we're doing one called the Salkantay Trek which is more beautiful but also tougher, apparently. We start the trek on the far side of Machu Picchu and then trek back towards it. We shall see it below us at sunset on day 3 and then it'll disappear from view on day 4 before we rise on day 5 at dawn to see it loom into view again. I can't wait!
Well, that's it. I hope you've all been enjoying the World Cup (England's poor performances aside, of course!). We've seen a few of the England games here but not much else. We shall miss the England Vs. Portugal game on Saturday but if they progress (IF!) then we'll be back in Cusco to see the semi-final.
Bye for now,
Rich
PS: Please send me a few emails, Lynn's getting loads more than me and it's not fair!
I hope this latest installment to my adventures find you fit and healthy.
Lynn and I are both currently enjoying the dry and sunny weather of the city of Cusco, 3,310m above sea level in the heart of Peru. Before colonial times Cusco was the ancient Inca capital and is now a thriving tourist city where we gringos (as foreigners are affectionately known here) are so numerous we seem to outnumber even the locals. The reason so many tourists flock here? Cusco is the gateway to that most famous of Inca sites, Machu Picchu.
The last episode of my travelogue saw us arriving in the city of Puno on the western shores of Lake Titicaca having crossed over from Bolivia. We spent only a couple of nights in Puno and that was enough. People go to Puno to go to Lake Titicaca and since we'd just come from there, there was absolutely no reason to hang about. We had a free day though before our bus to Arequipa the following morning and needing little incentive to leave the city we took a tour to the nearby pre-Incan sacred burial site of Sillustani. Sillustani really is the most fascinating place. I came here 6 years ago in July 2000 and was over-awed by the collosal burial towers, the biggest of which is 12m high. The towers are constructed out of huge stone blocks that fit together so prefectly that modern engineers still cannot understand how they were so accurately carved and constructed and despite numerous attempts no one has managed to replicate them.
We joined about 20 other people on the tour and but for one small annoyance we had a great afternoon wandering around the site. The annoyance I speak of was our guide who seemed to have completely the wrong idea about what it was that we had all come to see. We spent about 3 hours at Sillustani and our tour started with Mr. Guide telling us about how special this place was to the ancient civilisations of Peru; that Sillustani was sacred and that's why it was used as a burial site. All well and good, a bit of history is nice. He then went on to tell us that there was a 'special energy' in the land here and he would ensure that we all felt it before we left.
"Come with me" he said, leading us away from the other tour groups and the burial towers. He lead us up a nearby hill via a pathway to a small clearing of stones and for the next half hour had us standing in a circle in the clearing of stones with our arms out trying to "feel the power of the earth". I felt like asking him if he wanted to try and feel the power from my boot but my unusually tolerant nature made me refrain. After standing round like idiots for ages and him in the middle, eyes closed, feeling the ground (I kid you not) looking for the strongest area of energy he then gets out a crystal and dangles it about (to no obvious effect). By this stage half of us have given up listening to him and we're gazing longingly over the hill back at the burial towers and wandering if we're actually going to see them up close. I turn back to see what he's up to and find he's now picking people at random to dangle his crystal where he thinks we might feel something in the ground. In the end he gives up his search for energy and decides to talk about the stone circle instead.
"Does anyone know why the entrance to these stones is facing the north-east?" he asks.
I've had enough of this eejit. "Yes, I do" I say, "It's next to the bloody path. Less distance to walk." - I get a dig in the ribs from Lynn. "Well, I've had enough of this idiot. Come on lets go and look at those towers."
The second half of our tour was fabulous. We wandered about the ancient ruins and took some photos and pondered to ourselves about how these people had managed to build such amazing structures. Our guide, Uri Geller didn't talk to me on the way back, I'm not sure why.
We left Puno the following morning and headed south-west to the city of Arequipa. Arequipa has the most beautiful main square surrounded on all 4 sides by stunning white archways. It's also lower in altitude (2,410m) than we've spent any length of time for nearly 6 weeks so the warmer nights are very welcome. Arequipa is in a very volatile part of Peru, surrounded by many active volcanoes and sitting within an area frequented by powerful earthquakes. The last big one was in 2001.
Our hotel was called 'Posada Nueva Espana'. We found a small card for this hotel in the hotel we stayed at in Potosi, southern Bolivia. I picked it up, put it in the Arequipa section of my guidebook and promptly forgot all about it until I found it again whilst we were in Puno. I phoned up and made a reservation. Upon arrival in Arequipa, we got a taxi and then had to go through the predictable routine that Arequipan taxi drivers have become famous for:
(We get in taxi) "Good day Mr. Taxi Driver. Please take us to 'Posada Nueva Espana' on Calle Antiquilla. Number 106."
"What hotel?"
"Posada Nueva Espana"
"Where?"
"Calle Antiquilla"
"That road doesn't exist"
"Yes it does, here's the card for the hotel. Look - Calle Antiquilla, 106"
....Wait a while....
"That hotel's closed down. What about this one?" (Hands me a flyer for a hotel where if he takes me there he'll get a good commission)
"No thanks. Posada Nueva Espana, please."
"But it doesn't exist."
"Yes it does, I phoned them last night and have a reservation."
"So you don't want to go to this hotel?" (Waves flyer at me again)
"No"
After this he drives us to our hotel without any further questions. This is a scam that all the taxi drivers in Arequipa try on with newly arrived tourists as they make good money from the commission they receive by taking people to their hotel instead of the one the tourist actually wants to stay at.
Anyway, we spent 6 pleasant days in Arequipa with a 2 day trip to the Colca Canyon in the middle. Colca Canyon is twice as deep as the Grand Canyon in the USA and is home to a large number of Andean condors. The Andean condor has a massive 3m wongspan and from several good vantage points you can watch them glide past within 10 or so metres of you. Unfortunately, the thermals that the condors glide about on are at their strongest in the early hours of the morning hence the need to make this a 2 day trip. Day 1 takes us on a 5 hour bumpy mini-van journey to the little town of Chivay (north-east(ish)) of Arequipa. We get there in the mid-afternoon and spend the evening lounging about in a thermal-pool. Day 2 and we're up 05:00 in the morning for the 1 hour drive to the canyon. I took charge of Lynn's camera for the trip and took 30 or 40 photos as these immense birds swept past us.
On our last day in Arequipa I unfortunately developed another bout of stomach cramps that soon gave way to the inevitable diarrhoea. I'm up half the night and the next day I'm not in a fit state to leave the bathroom which isn't good when I have a 9 hour coach journey to Cusco ahead of me. What can I do? I knock back a couple of Imodium tablets, clench my cheeks and we head to the bus station. Atleast we've got a first class bed-seat coach to take us there so I can try to sleep....
We eventually leave Arequipa an hour late on a battered old standard bus. Our luxury bus sits next to it in the depot but it's in pieces and there's numerous legs sticking out from underneath, evidence of the mechanics trying to fix it. Our knackered old bus also has a broken gearbox that causes it to violently shudder the entire journey to Cusco. This is going to be a rough ride. By the time we arrive in Cusco 13 hours later (not the 9 hours the journey's supposed to take) it's 23:00 hours and I feel like I've got an advanced condition of Parkinson's disease I've been shook about so much. We get to our hotel and crash out for the night. Our hotel, Hotel Q'Awarina is described in our guidebook as "a delightful place, has good views and is good value". Our pokey little basement room doesn't even have a view and is barely bigger than the double bed that occupies it. It's 15 quid a night which is quite alot by Peruvian standards so the next morning we decide to pay up for the 1 night and then look for something better.
I feel slightly better this morning in the botty department. Not brilliant but better but I have another concern today. The dry air over the last couple of months has had not been good for my lips and I have suffered with minor cracks every now and again despite using lip balm in vast quantities. I've had a small crack on my lip for a few days now and this morning it was quite painful. Upon investgation in the mirror I am horrified to find that I appear to be balancing family-size cheese and tomato pizza on my lower lip. It's absolutely, shockingly enormous. Where the bloody hell has that sprung from? How am I going to eat? Even when I open my mouth to it's widest the top and bottom are still touching. And it's so, so painful. We decide I must have caught an infection in the crack on my lip from a dirty glass or something. What else can have caused it to erupt like Mount Versuvius in less than 8 hours? So, with sore butt and sore lip Lynn and the elephant man wander off to look for a new hotel. The second place we find is perfect. It's another old colonial house and we duck to go through the doorway, built in the days when everyone was 4ft tall. We have a massive room, private bathroom and it's less than half the price of the other place.
"Excellent, we're take it. We just have to nip back to the other hotel to get our bags."
On the way out I forget about the low doorway. CRACK! I now have a lump on my forehead to mirror the one on my lower lip. Yeah, that's right I can hear you all chuckling. It wasn't funny at the time, though!
So anyway, that was 4 days ago. I've been chucking back the antibiotics and the less sadistic amongst you will be pleased to know that I don't have a sore head anymore; I don't have a runny bum anymore and my lip.... well my lip still looks like you could paint an "H" and land helicopters on it but it's getting better. The problem is that every time I take a shower or have a drink or have something to eat, the scab comes off and I have to start all over but it's a smaller scab each time so you never know in a couple of months time I may look ok again!
We've been hanging around Cusco for 4 days now, enjoying the museums and local city sights. Tomorrow we set off on our 5 day trek to Machu Picchu. We're not doing the Inca Trail, we're doing one called the Salkantay Trek which is more beautiful but also tougher, apparently. We start the trek on the far side of Machu Picchu and then trek back towards it. We shall see it below us at sunset on day 3 and then it'll disappear from view on day 4 before we rise on day 5 at dawn to see it loom into view again. I can't wait!
Well, that's it. I hope you've all been enjoying the World Cup (England's poor performances aside, of course!). We've seen a few of the England games here but not much else. We shall miss the England Vs. Portugal game on Saturday but if they progress (IF!) then we'll be back in Cusco to see the semi-final.
Bye for now,
Rich
PS: Please send me a few emails, Lynn's getting loads more than me and it's not fair!
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