Cusco!....
Upon our arrival in Cusco we learned that the city was in the midst of a transportation strike! Lucky for us, we scheduled that 5:30 am flight out of Cusco, since travelers arriving later that day had no way of getting to there hotels. Even as I write this there are rumors of another strike that will start up again on Monday, apparently they're pretty typical in South America, especially in Peru and Bolivia....
We got to our Hostel, no problem, even though we had to pay some extra Soles (Peruvian Dinero) And so started our week long adventures in Cusco. Several people we've met along the way said Cusco was a great city to stay for a while... we listened, unfortunately.
Now, don't get me wrong, Cusco is beautiful and fun, albeit the constant street vendors trying to sell you stuff (we like to think of this as training for India), more US tourists than we've seen in the other countries combined, and having to buy a tourist ticket for just about everything to see in the city. Tourism is Cusco's main business these days, so I guess you have to expect those things.
Cusco's claim to fame... the oldest continously inhabited city in the Americas! It is old! Many of the current buildings were built upon Incan and Pre-Incan foundations, all surviving hundreds of years of earthquakes and typical natural weathering. You can clearly see the difference in the fine masonry construction of the Incas and the typical stone brick construction of the Spanish explorers in a single wall, very interesting.
For the first day or two, William and I walked around the city, got lost, found our way, and just checked things out... this has become our customary way of doing things once we arrive in a new place. Our first mission was to check out some of the Incan Ruins above Cusco, an easy 20 minute walk, for any place, except for the fact that Cusco is at over 10,000 ft and extremely "hilly". The Ruins are called Saqsaywaman, pronounced sexy woman. We started up, only to find that we needed a Tourist Ticket to enter the ruins, after failing to see if we could get in for cheaper we turned around only to find a boy telling us to follow him... It sounds a little sketchy, but why not!? On our hike with our new assumed tour guide, we found out he knew a way to get into the ruins without paying, his name was Dieter (German, I know...weird), and he was our new best friend! We hiked up a road for some time then followed Dieter to a barbed wire fence which he easily climbed through. Truthfully, at this point we weren't sure what to do, should we follow him, get to see the ruins, and possibly get thrown in a Peruvian Jail....or turn around, tail betwen our legs, and have Dieter make fun of us at dinner with his family, about the two candy-ass Americans he met today... You know what option we chose.
Through the barbed wire fence, across a Hacienda, and down into the ruins... We were in!
... for 10 minutes!...
We walked around saw some cool stuff and then were approached by Incan Park Police...Busted!
Luckily Will played the old, "My ticket was right here in my bag (pointing to an unzippered pocket)" and I did the whole, "What, what the hell did you do with the tickets!?"
The guy had to have known that we were bullshiting him, but he was cool about it and told us we had to leave through one of the main gates... "Ok, no problem, we've worn out our welcome" Except for the fact that Dieter said it was fine, and we should continue walking around...
Derek/ William: "No, Dieter we vamos ahora"
Dieter: "No, no, no problemo"
Derek/ William: "Es problemo Dieter! We Vamos"
In the midst of our Spanish/ Spenglish dispute another park police employee comes over and tells us to "Please leave now!"
Ok... we leave now! We casually walked through the gate, hopped in a cab, agreed to the over-inflated price back to the hostel, and got the hell out of there!
And so it goes our Cusco trespassing adventure!
But that wasn't the last time we saw Dieter, we actually made plans with him to guide William and I and a couple of Aussies we met around town and into some museums...legally.
Dieter turned out be very knowledgable in Cusco history. He spoke both, Spanish and Quechua, and a little bit of English... and of course we spoke very little Spanish.... and even our English wasn't even that good (so says, some of the Brits we've met)
And throughout the next couple of days I finally got back to Saqsaywaman (totally worth the money, should've done it in the beginning), attended a nice Toga Party...it had been 10 years since the last time Will and I went to one together... Ate some delicious soup, only to find a whole chicken foot in it!...We even were invited to a Peruvian cooking class where we made Arroz Chaufa con pero caliente... Fried rice with hot dog... (yes, pero caliente is the literal translation and is written on the packaging), met tons of cool people, walked around the markets (seeing how much it would cost to buy a whole pig head), and got the hang of staying in a place longer than 3 days!
The days went by faster than we thought they would, and Cusco treated us well. Pretty soon we found ourselves packing up for the Inca Trail, and having to wake up at 5am...
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