Cusco

Peru

December 2006
14 days

Cusco
19th December 2006 to 3nd January 2007.

We love Cusco!!
So much so, that it is unanimously decided, that we should return to somewhere we know for Christmas and New Years to truly relax, spoil and enjoy ourselves. I know that's what we are doing this entire trip but I tell you this, travelling is hard work (although not as hard as House of Fraser!!).

Bus Journey From Hell
So we take the bus back from Bolivia to Puno through customs, which was uneventful. At Puno bus station we need a bus to Cusco, its 10:50am and we panic as we see that buses back to Cusco are leaving at 11am. Flustered we go to the first ticket agent and book two seat on their bus. Nice!

No not nice.... we forget to make the crucial check that you must always do in Peru... always always ask for the Tourist bus! Never get the locals bus .... as we approached the bus with our heavy bags we noticed it looked a little older and shabbier than most but were just relieved to have a seat so we boarded. It was 99% empty except for a couple of people dotted around and we didn't like the look of our seats so we slipped in to the row behind that had a better view and more legroom.

Whilst sitting there waiting for the luggage to be loaded and the driver to take his seat we started to noticed little things that we didn't like about this here bus. We were going to be on this contraption for over 7 hours and already knew we weren't going to be friends! It had a musky smell and you just felt the seats were never cleaned so just resting your head back on them made you feel dirty as you imagined little nano-sized bugs hopping straight in to your hair and making a nice cosy nest. OK OK so maybe more so on Sarah's thick thatch of barnet!

We noticed little pieces of chewing gum stuck to the window seals and under seats, the windows were filthy dirty on both sides making photos taking impossible.... and then we realised.... NO TOILET! What!!!! We then knew this was not a Tourist bus but it was too late the driver was now boarding and firing up the engine. OK let's not panic... we pretty much have the bus to ourselves and we can spread out... choose the best seats, stick on our Ipods and go to sleep for hours... good plan. We were sat two rows back from the front with a partition between us and the driver that you went through via a small door. As the driver pulled out of the station we breathed a sigh of relief that nobody else has got on but then our nightmare began.... through the most cheapest, crackliest and tinniest speakers known to man the driver pumped out the worst Spanish music you could bare to stand at high volume. We put on our Ipods but we could still hear this racket so hoped it would get better or be turned down soon.

We drove out of Puno up the hill and already we were starting to put the music to the back of our minds... We thought about telling the driver to switch it off but others didn't seem to mind it so we left it be. Then we seemed to take a turning off the main highway and knew this was not the way back to Cusco.... It stopped in a dirty shanty town in what must have been its main thoroughfare, and to our surprise it flung the doors open and instantly about 150 locals started to clamber on. Now one thing I cannot stand in life are people with no patience... who don't know how to queue and wait their turn... so when this lot started pushing past each other and knocking us around I almost lost it.... Then some Peruvian dude stood their staring at us and showing us his ticket.... we were in his seats! I'm thinking so why can't you just go and sit on another seat but he was having none of it so we got up.... But now there were so many people on the bus all standing up each with 4 huge bags of what can only be called crap and were blocking any chance we had of getting back to our proper seats....and anyway we didn't want those seats... they sucked!

Already the bus was starting to smell worse with the heat and sheer number of people. We finally got back to our cramped seats and watched in disbelief as more boarded with half their worldy possessions with them.... TV's, clothes, food etc all in large canvass bags. And then we looked outside the bus to see groups of people climbing up on to the roof and lashing ropes over the bus, hauling huge bags up their too! We now realised this was not just a quick stop... half the damn town was getting on to!! Cursing under my breath and starting to lose my cool..... and then that was it... I pushed my way off the bus swearing at anyone who got in my way... Sarah followed and we hit the pavement to stand back form the bus and get a grip on the situation.

We're British for heavens sake, we can't be expected to travel like cattle on such a disgusting bus for 7 hours.... we simply won't do it.... We asked the driver to retrieve our huge bags from the luggage section and stood by the side of the road, catching our breath and ready to start working out an alternative... anything but this!

So we got our bearings and looked for bus or tourist offices and on this street there were a couple. Taxis were also nipping around so already I had a few ideas up my sleeve. Yeah we'd now been travelling for a while and we knew how to get about.. we'd sort this out. No.... No we wouldn't! After ten minutes of asking around it turned out that we were now off the beaten track... no tourist buses go through here..... none! OK I thought we´ll get a locals bus back to Puno as that was only an hour but there weren't any for 7 hours. Last resort and being in a cheap country we asked for a taxi back to Puno.... and didn't care if it cost us 100USD we'd have it... but no.... taxis wont leave the town. What... are you serious..... what is this, some kind of primative country village.... well erm yes.

We'd exhausted all possibilities and came back with diddly. We had to face facts and it killed me to to this but I went back to the driver of our bus and asked him to reload our bags. On they went and we kept a low profile as we got back on and squeezed ourselves in to our assigned seats.

Today was NOT a good day!

When you have no alternative in life you simply face up to it and stop caring... but didn't mean I had to like it... no way! Almost an hour after we had pulled in to this flea infested town we pulled off again and with a heavy load, we weren't getting anywhere fast, but at least we were moving. I already needed a wee but with no toilet and feeling very stubborn I decided I would hold it in for the entire journey. The journey continued and it rained hard. The other thing we didn't realise about non tourist buses is that they don't make a couple of nice stops as service stations or places with snacks and toilets..... Instead these stop every 20 miles at the side of the road for men and women to jump out and pee by the side of the road... and they did.... we sat and watched as women and men of all ages stood by the bus in the pouring rain and squatted right there in full view and did their business.... By now I really needed to go but refused.

Some of these stops had locals there selling drinks and snacks and they would come on board trying to sell their cakes etc. Sarah remembers very vividly of one lady getting on with a massive massive pot I don't even know how she got it on the bus, but she did and continued to cut meat with a meat clever as the bus hurtled down the middle of the road bouncing and taking corners at about 50 miles an hour. Sarah was honestly convinced that she would cut her hand off and was wondering what on earth we could possible do. The smell of the meat made me feel sick.

All of these toilet and snack stops added about an extra 3 hours to our journey so all in all we were stuck on it for almost nine and a half hours... long long hours.... by the end of which my bladder was starting to send me danger signs. Alert alert - Will explode soon! lol.

We were so relieved to see once again our home town of Cusco and as soon as it stopped we leapt off, retrieved our bags and jumped in a taxi to a hostel. Dumped our bags and headed straight for our favourite Jacks Cafe were we ate and drank like Kings on the finest food. This was a good way to start to heal the mental scars of the day. A few more trips here to Jacks and we knew we'd be healed.

Our Beloved Cusco
OK so lets just forget that nasty bus ride, we're back and we love it here so rather than tell you too much about the place (see previous Cusco entry) here's what we got up to for the two weeks over Christmas and New Year.

Sarah decided she would enrol at the Spanish School for a week as I had some private web site work to complete. So our days up to Christmas basically consisted of waking up at 8am, getting breakfast at the hostel and then Sarah would go to School from 9am to 4pm. I would go to a cool web cafe for the day and combine playing poker with doing work. I'd also break up the day with a little visit to one of the pubs in the square to drink a beer, eat Shepherds Pie or Lasange whilst lookigout over the sqaure or watching a repay on of a Premiership Football game on FOX sports. Lovely life!

Our hostel of choice for this week was nice and cheap at 30 soles a night (6 pounds), but came at a price and each day had a story to tell. Their English was non existant but we were sure when we first checked in that they said breakfast was included. So the first morning we left our room and bumped in to the manager who then told us breakfast was 3 soles. That's dirt cheap so we didn't complain and headed up to the breakfast area. We ate the bread and jam washed down with coca tea and as instructed asked for the bill. The lady looked at us with a dumb expression and proceeded to tell us that it was free. We asked others dining there if their breakfast was free and they answered in the affirmative so we left very confused and not paying.

We felt sorry for this lady over the next few days as not only did she have to serve the breakfasts on the top floor but simultaneously clean all the rooms and rush down to answer the phone every five minutes. She had a bad limp so this was no easy task considering this was on three floors. I simply thought, why don't they get a walkabout phone!

Another weird situation arose when we were told by one lady that the Internet PCs here were free (Gratis) but one the first day I used it for two hours another lady charged me. When I later mentioned this to the first lady she said that's not right as it should be free, but offered no refund... shabby service I thought...

The really big mess up was when we left the key with the maid in the morning to have our room cleaned only to return that night to find the room hadn't been cleaned and they'd lost our room key.... even better still they had no spare for our room. Great, as all our stuff was in the room. After about two hours and the help of a nice Dutch guy who spoke good Spanish the bell boy climbed across the balcony and broke the door in....crazy!!!. At least we got back in and even better whilst waiting for the door to be opened I sat on the PC and had the bets poker session ever and made $160 in one hour! Nice!

After all these shenanigans we decided to be cheeky and book ourselves into the nearby luxury hotel for two nights around Christmas and 3 nights around New Year moving back to our cheapo hostel in the middle. I say expensive but by American and Canadian terms really cheap. 70USD per night which was so much more than our 12USD hostel but the bed here was huge... you could easily fit 5 people and a Llama in and we also got a big TV with movie channels in English....Sweet!!

OK so Christmas Eve arrives and we've got our luxury room. We both had sneaked around the day before getting each other a few gifts and had wrapped them at the post office. Now whilst I was in the bathroom Sarah had decorated the room with tinsel and other decorations and laid out presents on the desk along with some Wine and Chocs. A really nice surprise and made it feel Christmassy.

We popped to the square to see the vast market stools that had been set up and en route we watched queues of children all excited waiting for a free gift being dealt out by a charity.... The boys were getting action figures of BatMan and the girls got a doll of some kind. Seeing how happy they were and how a simple toy was enough for them made me realise how spoilt we are back home and how Christmas has become a little vulgar and expensive, having it forced down our throats from October to December and feeling the pressure to buy ridiculously expensive gifts.

The market was enormous in the main square (Plaza De Armes). People came from far and wide to buy outfits for their nativity scene characters and buy mangers and plastic animals... It was exciting but in my mind it ruined the feel of the square as it was just too busy now.

We drank in the pubs in the afternoon and went for a special Christmas Eve dinner that night. I got my Turkey and vegetables whilst Sarah ate great pasta. Happy Christmas to all our friends we were thinking of you!

Boxing Day here was no holiday so it was all back to normal and Sarah was off for her second week at school. Sarah: I want to thank Yessica, Sondra and Paty as my Spanish is now at a much higher level ' mucho gracias chicos'.

Connected to Sarah's Spanish school were music teachers and we decided to go for a Guitar lesson. We weren't convinced how much we could learn in two hours but thought we'd have a crack at it. Sarah was more keen to playing the Pan Pipes (sorry Kate!!) which are in all the music in Peru but we went for the cheaper teacher.

So we turned up and his eyes lit up when I told him in poor Spanish that my father was Eric Clapton but he soon realised this was a lie when I picked up the guitar. In retrospect perhaps this wasn´t the best idea as we were complete novices and he didn't have any kind of teaching aids apart from playing us songs. In theory we should be able to play House Of The Rising Sun now. In reality we cant. My finger tips on the left hand lost all feeling for three days after this so think I must be using too much hand lotion and need to toughen up.

Other afternoons we'd go to one of the cool bars that offered free movies played from copied DVDs but were on large screens and you could drink and eat great Pizza. We watched 'The Break Up' with Vince and Jen which was average and Guy Rithie's 'Revolver' which like Lock Stock and Snatch is cool but a little weird.

In the web cafe on two occasions we sat next to and saw the funniest thing. A local guy would come in to chat on MSN with some buddy of his, but he must have had seriously bad problems with his mince pies (eyes) as he was practically licking the screen he was that close... I almost wet myself laughing watching as he sat down and instantly grabbed the keyboard off the desk and held in in his left arm like he was about to play a violin.... He'd bring the keyboard up to his right eye and stab at it one finger at a time laughing to himself and dribbling. After punching in his sentence and hitting the return key he would sling down the keyboard and put his right eye up to the screen and move his head around laughing to himself... when the reply came he'd be an inch from the screen almost getting sunburn and would chuckle before grabbing the keyboard once again and repeating the process.... its hard to explain but this guy cracked me up and had to be mentioned!

New Years Eve 2006/7
We popped to the web cafe in the afternoon to call home and say happy new year to family. That night we went to the main square at 11pm to see the New Year in. It was insane with thousands of people mooching around each armed with their own fireworks. You'd never see this in England or any danger aware civilisation. This was chaos and an accident waiting to happen, as at random people lit large rockets and we watched in amazement as they whizzed and sped off into the air and often into crowds of people. It´s a weird thing to see as your first reaction is to laugh but at the point of impact you can't help but tense up and draw in breath as you wonder if thet hit someoen right in the eye! We kept well back under the protection of the Cathedral overhang and jumped out of our skin as bombshells were let off with a violent chest vibrating bang that made you feel like being stuck in Baghdad. Everyone hugged each other at midnight and then we spent two hours after that drinking in a few pubs before heading back to our huge bed (minus the llamas).

Sad To Leave
It was with a sorry heart that we said goodbye to Cusco. We would totally recommend the place to anyone else as we enjoyed it thoroughly, although be sure to check which bus you are booked on.

Due to the recent violence in Rio (Brazil) we'd seen on Google news, we now decided to skip this country and go to Argentina instead. We had to still get our flight to Brazil as we'd left the decision too late to reroute our flight for free, so instead we had to fly from Cusco to Lima, Lima to Sao Paulo and then from there, on a newly purchased flight to Buenos Aires in Argentina. Three flights in 24 hours... that's a new record for us...

One last thing that made us chuckle was at Cusco Airport. We'd checked in and were trying to get up the escalator to go through security but a family of local Peruvians were standing at the bottom too scared to get on this funny contraption as they'd obviously never seen one before. Two old ladies and two children all laughing and screaming not quite sure how to get on it.... We stood behind and laughed but found it quite sweet that something we take for granted they found new and scary. An airport official came over to assist but the old lady kept putting one leg on but not the other, so quickly retracted it when it almost pulled her off her feet... We tried to get past them to demonstrate how simple it was but eventually they just jumped on and screamed and laughed all the way to the top.... It was even funnier watching them try to get off the other end.. hilarious.....

We were still laughing about it as we went to board yet another plane, which by now to us was no more exciting than boarding a bus. Funny how you get used to things. See you guys in Argentina.... keep reading!