Cuzco (June 11 - 14, 2006)

:: June 11 ::

Wandering around the streets of Cuzco , it is overwhelming both how touristy this city is as well as how much history it contains in its stones. Everywhere we look there are remnants of the Incan civilization – the huge boulders that make up the foundation of many of the buildings, as well as the style of their construction. Mixed in of course is Spanish colonial style as well. The San Blas neighbourhood, where our hostel is located, is up on a hill over looking the city and the views are great, particularly at night. It is a ten minute walk to the central plaza, where there is always lots of activity going on (except on Sundays!). We spent the day just wandering around the streets and alleys, taking it all in. Many of the shops were closed, and the city was much quieter than it had been the Saturday night before when we arrived. We ate a huge brunch at Jack’s (a western-run establishment) and didn’t have to eat again for the rest of the day, not even dinner!

At one point we wandered into a chocolate/coca store and had a very long chat with Louis, the guy who was working there. He was studying English and wanted to practice, and he was also very interesting to talk to. In a mixture of English and Spanish, we chatted about politics, music, the city, the future of Peru , where he was from (Junin province), etc. More than an hour later we left, of course with some yummy chocolates. He also gave us a small sample of the Pisco that he sells, and gave Lincoln some coca leaves to stick into his mouth and suck on. Lincoln didn’t like them though, and spat them out after we left!

We tried to buy tickets for the Inti Raymi festival at Sacsaywaman on June 24^th, and were shocked to discover that the good seats on the bleachers cost US$80. Yikes! We asked if we could pay with a credit card, since we didn’t have that kind of cash on us, and were instructed to go to the Municipal Cashier to pay. We eventually found this place, and stood in line for over half an hour before we got to the counter. I explained what we wanted, and they guy understood, but then he said we couldn’t pay with a credit card because their machine wasn’t working. Darn! We decided to give up on buying the tickets for today, and thought we should check with Phil, Kat and Jessica to see if they wanted to pay that much.

We did get our Salkantay trek booked with Flamenco Travel. We decided to be lazy and go with a tour agency so that horses would carry our bags and someone else would worry about the food and arranging everything. The cost was only $140 per person, and includes entry into Machu Picchu as well as a guide around the ruins (entry fee alone to MP is $25). We got a discount because we didn’t want the train back to Cuzco with the rest of the group because we are meeting up with P, K & J in Aguas Calientes on June 20^th.

:: June 12 ::

Today was another fairly lazy day. I wasn’t feeling very well (nothing serious, just kind of tired and “off”). We walked around some more, stopped at a book fair where I bought a book on Incan philosophy, and looked for a topographical hiking map of the Salkantay area but couldn’t find one. We had breakfast at a great little bakery not far from our place, where all the proceeds go to a girls’ school. In our wanderings we stumbled across the Convento Santo Domingo, which is also on the site of Coricancha, which was the temple of the sun during Incan times. The stonework of the building was pretty impressive, and on the inside was a good collection of religious paintings, from the time when the Spaniards had converted the temple into a church.

For dinner, we headed to the Real McCoy, which is also near a Manu tour agency that we wanted to check out. Turns out that Flamenco doesn’t actually offer a tour that includes a canopy tour and zip lines like they had originally told us. There also isn’t a clay lick any more in the Cultural Zone of Manu because the wall fell down during the rainy season in March. I really wanted to see a clay lick, but now the only way to see one is to go to the Reserved Zone and fly to either Puerto Maldonado or Boca Manu, which means the extra expense of a plane ticket ($160 return). If I can’t see the clay lick, I at least want to do a canopy tour! The company Ecological Adventures Manu is the only company offering these canopy tours, and they also have options for biking and rafting, so we will likely go with them.

We managed to catch some of the Czech/USA soccer game around lunch time, which made Lincoln happy. The Czech’s won 3-0.

Dinner at the Real McCoy was good, although a bit expensive. As we were walking out of the Manu tour agency, we ran into Andreea, whom we had been trying to get a hold of earlier today. It was a good coincidence to run into her, and she was looking for someone to have dinner with. We said we would join her even though we had already eaten, and just have a couple of drinks. We went to another local restaurant, where Lincoln had a Pisco Sour and I had a ridiculously expensive hot chocolate. My drink was more expensive than Lincoln ’s, and more expensive than Andreea’s entire dinner, which included a glass of wine! She had a “tourist menu”, which is a great deal at 10soles for a bowl of soup, a main course, and a drink. We should starting eating more of those!

We walked Andreea back to her hostel then headed to ours, and didn’t get home until after 10:00pm . A late night for us!

:: June 13 ::

Today we decided to do something more energetic than just walking around the city. We bought the very expensive “tourist ticket” for 70 soles each, which provides entry into sixteen different museums and archaeological sights around the sacred valley. It is only good for ten days, so we wanted to make sure it would last us until we went to Ollantaytambo, which is why we waited until today to buy it. We tried to get the student rate, which is half the price, but the lady wouldn’t believe that we were under 25. Hmpf. I showed my Carleton student card and she asked me how old I was and I said 28, thinking that would be somewhat believable and maybe she would still give it to us, but no dice.

After getting our tourist pass, we went in search of the bus station for buses to Pisac, which was on Tullumayo somewhere. We wanted to take the local bus to Tambomachay, a set of ruins that is 8km outside the town towards Pisac, and then walk back into Cuzco visiting three other ruins along the way (Pukapukara, Q’enko, and Saksaywaman). We eventually found the bus station, not far from where it was supposed to be on our map, and hopped on the next bus for 2 soles each (tours to these four sites cost around 25 soles per person). Each of the four sites were different, and at two of them (Pukapukara and Saksaywaman) we paid a guide to explain the sites to us, which was well worth it. Tambomachay and Pukapukara were very close together, and Saksaywaman (pronounced kind of like “sexy woman”) and Q’enko were near each other as well. The road between these two was a nice walk downhill through peaceful forested and farming areas. It was nice to be walking around in nature again after being in the city for the past few days. Running alongside Pukapukara are the remains of one of the main Incan trails, heading East and eventually leads down into the Amazon.

Saksaywaman is the second largest excavated site after Machu Picchu , and our guide Jimmy did a good job of explaining all the different areas of the sites to us. The rocks here that are holding up the main walls of the temple are huge and it was amazing that the Incans could have moved them into place. The temple here is believed to be a temple dedicated to the puma, as well as an astronomical observation area. This is also the location of the rituals of the Inti Raymi festival that takes place on June 24^th every year, and we asked Jimmy about what the best way to see it would be, aside from buying the $80 tickets. He said that he knows people who will be selling $10 or $15 tickets for seating on the big rock overlooking the square where the ceremonies will take place. Excellent! We arranged to meet up with him at 7:40am (ouch) at the entrance, where we will pay him to get us seats on the rock. The ceremonial square wasn’t as big as we thought it was going to be, and they were already setting up the bleachers. The views from the big rock looked like they would be just as good if not better than the bleachers (higher vantage point). Bonus.

The last ruins of the day were Q’enko, which had quite a few tunnels through limestone rocks, with niches and ceremonial tables carved out inside. It was very cool. There was also a zig-zagging groove carved near the top of the rock that looked like it was used to channel rain water into the areas below.

We didn’t make it back to Cuzco until around 4:30 and since we hadn’t had lunch or any snacks we were starving. We gave up on the idea of cooking our own dinner at the hostel, since we would have had to buy groceries first, and opted for a tourist menu at a small restaurant not far from our hostel. The food was good, and for 30 soles, Lincoln and I each had pisco sours, soup, a main dish, and some mate de coca. Not bad.

:: June 14 ::

On Monday we had arranged to meet Andreea in front of one of the churches on the main square at 9:00am so we could watch the parades together. On the way we went to the bakery to have some tasty pastries for breakfast. We had been told by a guy staying at our hostel (who is doing PhD research on the Corpus Christi and Inti Raymi festivals) that there would be parades from 9:30 to noon with the saints from all the surrounding churches being brought to the main Cathedral for the celebrations that will take place tomorrow (but we won’t be here). We sat by the square until 10:30 and nothing was happening, so we went to a couple of museums and checked back later. By 1:00 the parades were starting, so we parked ourselves on the balcony of a pub with a good view of all the saints. The parades lasted until almost 5:00 , and we saw around ten saints brought into the cathedral, with their entourage of dancers. After each group brought their saint into the cathedral, they came back out and kept dancing around outside in the square. Some of the guys were even whipping each other on the legs as a sort of mock battle. It was loads of fun! It is hard to believe that today is just a warm-up for the real parades tomorrow.

After watching the parades, we had a few things to do before leaving on our hike tomorrow. We found out that they are coming to pick us up at our hostel at 4:30am . Yuck! Early to bed for us tonight!