There is a very good reason why Machu Picchu was awarded one of the new 7 wonders of the world. Many people I know have been to MP either via the Inca Trail or the train and walk up to the site. It is spectacular. We spent the night before in Auga Calientes a small village at the base of the mountain, and then made our way up early the following morning. You cannot spend less than a full day in MP, there is so much to see and do. I also realised that I have an issue with heights and the trip up to the sun dial left me a little shaky. This place feels like you are on top on the world, it is so steep, and when you have a narrow path to walk on and a sheer drop it is not for the faint hearted. I am a bit of a wuss. But pushing through it was worth making it to the sundial, which is the Inca trailians have a first glimpse of the lost city. We both then spent the day rummaging around the ruins. Bueno.
If I am completely honest Cusco is awful. The town and surrounding areas are very beautiful but it is a false tourist bubble. Tourists by in large dominate this town and you get hassled to buy trinkets every second step you take. One smart person wore a tshirt that read "No Gracias". I was very embarrased to be a traveller when you see a lot of people in the main square very drunk or on drugs. The local "healing drink" San Pedro was advertised and from one traveller I met was in fact a hallucinagenic. Why!! The locals lie to you including at one point where a small shop said it had bread when in fact they would have had to go to another shop nearby to purchase it and then sell it back to us at a higher price. Having to pay gringo prices does become part of travelling in parts of South America. Cusco has in fact a three tier pricing system, prices for gringos, prices for people from Lima and then the price for the locals in Cusco. With a high rate of poverty locals should have the right to pay less, but when the locals here also discriminate against themselves I am a little less inclined to pay a higher rate. If you have been to Cusco did you ever wonder why you do not see a local at one of the bars in the central area or be allowed to roam around in the stores that tourists do. By no means it is not that they dont want to associate with us, it is because they are not allowed into these places.
The air is not the best, so I happened to get ill with a respiratory infection. Cusco sits at around 3300m so not being well and having dealing with higher altitudes I decided rather than spend more than my two days in bed to see a doctor. Our hotel had advertised that they have medical services. This service as we found out was to try and call a doctor, when they couldnt get through they said sorry they are no longer operating and walked away without any further information to help out.
We seemed to be met with frustration everywhere. Then we happened upon South American Explorers to get some information for travelling further. A lady called Janice was helping out a friend on an early Saturday morning, an English lass who had been in Peru for two years. She was lovely and also owned a local restaurant which soon became our local. Young Fanny was celebrating her birthday so after a couple of days in Agua Calientes and MP we made our way back to Cusco had some cake and a drink at Janices Cuban Bar. I think without meeting Janice our trip to Cusco would have been completely awful!!
After our return to Cusco we decided to see how we were going to go on, possibly through Puno and into Bolivia or down through Tacna into the Atacama Desert in Chile. We took ourselves to the local bus station. No buses were running south due to protests and Bolivia was in fact shut down due to problems in La Paz and the border areas. Stories came in about large protests where buses had rocks thrown at them, stopped and robbed, and deaths of people in the protests were left upon the sides of the roads. An awful situation. At one point I had had enough, I was at a counter, my hands going numb as I was getting accustomed to high altitude again (MP is in fact lower than Cusco), and being told we could not get out, how i wanted to leave Peru right then and there. In hindsight we were very lucky to be in Cusco and not on the bus the night before to Puno where no doubt we would have been caught up in some of the problems or being stuck in Bolivia for the 'indefinite period' until the protests stop. They were protesting against water contamination, why and how they become violent is a sad situation. We did see some of the buses come back into the terminal none of which were left untouched, graffiti, dents or windows smashed with the rocks.
So our next avenue was to get a bus back to Lima. We could not get down to either southern border for a week, so with time being tight we looked at bus companies to Lima. Our usual company was booked out. We headed back to the SAE clubhouse to try and get some more information on the protests. On the way there we were told by a taxi driver that the bus company we usually used had just been in a bad accident where 24 people had been killed and that we should not use them. He told us about another company, a little dubious about this person more likely getting a commission if we booked with this bus company we tried to do some more research. We had also found out that the accident was on the Panamerican which is the same highway i had my accident in Ecuador, and could see that it would not necessarily be the fault of the bus driver given most people driving on this road are pretty bonkers!!So four hours later we looked at some companies decided on one and we finally had our tickets back to Lima.
The road from Cusco to Lima is not a great road. It resembled a rollercoaster ride with loads of unmade sections. One of the drivers thought he was a in the formula one, so these combined leads to a few panic attacks over the 19 hour journey and an unheard request to slow down on the curves when the bus felt like the top half may snap off. I had serious thoughts about whether I was really made for backpacking in South America after this.
So the plush ladies we are after landing in Lima we had a manicure and took a flight back from Lima to Argentina. Back in my beloved Buenos Aires. What a wonderful surprise to land when it started to snow, it was magic. It had not snowed here in nearly 90 years, frio si!! pero muy hermosa.
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