Day 51, 57 - 59: Cusco

October 3, 9 – 11 2015

Cusco, or Cuzco, is a UNESCO World Heritage site, and the former capital of the Incan Empire that dominated the western Andean region for approximately 200 years before the Spanish Conquest in the 16th century. Thanks to the Incans, and no thanks to the Spanish, the Peruvians are now able to milk massive amounts of tourism money. Understandably, as the capital city of the Incan Empire, which was huge and possibly the wealthiest South American empire during that time, it possessed many treasures and important buildings, which were mostly religious/spiritual in nature. Numerous ruins (thanks to the Spanish) are spread both in and around the ancient city that was built in the shape of a Puma (a powerful symbol to them). Cusco’s relative proximity to Machu Picchu also meant that it didn’t make sense for anyone to visit Machu Picchu and skip Cusco.

View of Cusco from Sacsayhuamán

That said, we actually knew little about Cusco. Like most of the other travellers who were there, Machu Picchu was the main draw. Despite the depth of history, the wonderful ruins, the beautiful city, and interesting culture, Cusco wasn’t really that appealing to us. It was seriously just a place to celebrate Vik’s birthday, and have a pit stop before and after the 5D Salkantay trek, just so that we could rest and recover. Wel... maybe also a place to find out more about the Incan civilisation. Seriously speaking, we didn’t have anything much planned out for the few days there.

Plaza de Armas

DAY 1

We arrived at Cusco bright and early and headed straight for our hostel: Lodging Magaly backpacker. It was one of the cheapest hostels we found and hence not the best to recommend. Old place, 10 mins walk from Plaza de Armas, and slightly rickety looking furniture, but it's value for money and we were pretty happy with the service and WiFi. We had a really big room to ourselves that had en-suite bathroom for 17USD. After getting ourselves settled, we headed out to explore.

Like we said, we had no plans. The whole point was to settle in, go for the brief at Salkantay Trekking at 1900hrs, maybe see a sight or two, and just chill and prepare for the 5D4N trek. But because it was Vik’s 30th birthday, Leann wanted to at least make it memorable. So with our new Alpaca sweaters, we headed out to see what else would interest us, despite the gloomy weather.

birthday boy's OOTD

Cusco was much more spacious compared to Puno, and much more organized, although it was legendarily designed in the shape of a Puma. We liked the modern feel to the ancient city, like a well renovated vintage house. We knew that it’s a city funded mainly by tourist dollars, and expected it to be heavily tourist oriented, but somehow it didn’t feel overwhelmingly so, unlike Chile’s San Pedro de Atacama. The local market still seemed pretty local, there were lots of small convenience stores, and banks were still filled with locals (who were probably local business owners). It generally felt pretty balanced, with a good mix of local and touristy stuff. That said, we found out that the sights were all rather expensive, and had some kind of bundle package for tickets with a limited time period that we didn’t want to think about at this moment.

After a rather ordinary breakfast, we headed first to Salkantay Trekking to find out if they accepted credit card, an important thing to us considering the withdrawal limits we experienced in Bolivia. Sadly, we were told that we need to draw the balance at ATMs and proceeded to test them all, crossing our fingers that we could find a decent bank with a decent withdrawal limit, and minimal administrative charges. We tested about 6 ATMs (with various limits and charges) and eventually decided on one near the Plaza de Armas. It’s a blue grey machine (we cannot remember the bank name) that allowed us a maximum withdrawal of 340 USD, with a 5 USD admin charge, and of course a 5 SGD withdrawal fee at home. We had to withdraw twice, and then once more after we came back a few days later so as to make sure we had enough for the long trip north into Ecuador after this.

Money woes settled, we had Vik’s birthday lunch at Macdonalds. If you do not know yet, Vik has this quest to try Macdonalds in every country (to see how they catered to the locals so definitely not the Big Mac).

We also decided to take up a chocolate making workshop to celebrate Vik’s birthday, which fits our idea of learning something new, and having fun! It wasn’t cheap (75 PEN / 35 SGD) but it was definitely interesting, plus we could bring back our own hand made chocolate! Perfect as additional comfort snacks for our trek to Machu Picchu! We also had fun with the chocolate museum’s mascot, a cute 2-year-old boy who’s the son of one of the chocolate artisans.

Choc workshop

Vik’s birthday also happens to be a Sunday, and we were (un)lucky to catch a really draggy and unimpressive skit about the arrival of the Spanish Conquistadors at Plaza de Armas (might be just because we don’t understand Spanish). We didn’t hang out long, and decided to head back before our briefing at the Salkantay Trekking Office (we will leave the details of the trek to the next post). After picking up our laundry, we went back to the hostel to pack, and arranged to meet the awesome possum Irish Ladies for dinner!

We arranged to meet at a top rated TripAdvisor restaurant after our Salkantay trek brief, but ended up in the only Irish Bar (Ireland still holds a very special meaning to both of us) in town, hoping to have a very Irish birthday celebration for Vik, or at least a satisfying pint of Guinness, which according to Vik, is a defining minimum standard for any Irish bar. Unfortunately, Paddy’s Irish pub couldn’t meet that minimum standard. The anguish of not getting his favourite pint was quickly alleviated by the fun loving trio who showered Vik with elaborate gifts: Random temporary stick-on tattoos, a very useful Poncho with the word Vik lovingly pasted on the back, and a bottle of wine. All in all, we had a great night out, and Paddy’s was spared a thrashing down for not being Irish enough. We bade goodnight, and sincerely hoped that we would cross paths on our Salkantay trek!

Our Irish friends made Vik his personalised poncho

DAY 2 (6 days later)

We arrived back from Machu Picchu the night before and took a while to find our hostel Barrio Inka, which was a pretty decent place other than the location. Ratings were high due mainly to owner Sergio who was a good host, and served eggs for breakfast though I wouldn’t really call it “really good”. Price was decent and we got a pretty good and spacious room with the bathroom right outside.

After a restful night, we took our time and crawled out of bed. We left Sergio with the laundry, and headed out to the San Pedro market, which was pretty well organized by category. When you enter from the north, you will come across approximately 50 fruit juice stalls, all designed the same way, and packed neatly in rows. They all serve the same juices, have the same signage, and only differ by the name of the stall. Then again, there were some stalls that had the same name, including the one we had our drink at: “Sonia”. We then continued to check out the array of stalls ranging from spices, bread, clothes, souvenirs, and cooked food (aka zhi char) stalls with cartoon characters on their signs.

The stalls at San Pedro market are organised

As the capital and the final stronghold of the Incan empire, Cusco obviously had numerous impressive ruins inside and out of the city, so we initially wanted to explore the ones in the city, but we then realised that the cost of visiting these sites isn’t cheap. A 10 day boleto turistico pass to all sites is already 130 sol (65 SGD) while a 1-day pass is 70 sol (35 SGD). We decided to just walk up to see Sacsayhuamán (or sexy woman) from the outside and explore whatever we can that won’t cost us too much! We ended the day by having a well-deserved feast at Kusikuy, where we had Cuy, a roasted Peruvian guinea pig! It wasn’t cheap by South American standards (dinner cost 110 sol), but it was definitely an interesting experience eating a huge rodent! Leann didn’t like the tough and rubbery meat one bit, but Vik thought it was pretty delicious.

Cuy

DAY 3 and 4

These 2 days are easily summed up simply because Leann was once again hit by a bout of vomiting in the middle of the night due to indigestion (thanks to cuy). She was pretty much stuck on the bed for the entire day as Vik fought to help her recover. Lucky for us, it was our buffer day (another reason why you need to plan well) and we were only heading up to Ecuador the following day. So other than revisiting the market and the supermarket to buy recovery food, we did nothing else.

Fortunately, Leann managed to recover in time for us to take the long road across to our friends in Quito, which involved 3 taxis, 3 flights, and 3 buses and probably an additional 24 hours just to save 100USD per person.

Recommendations/Tips:

• Cusco is worth spending more time (about 3 more days) if you have it in the first place, but if you don’t, I guess you should just forget about the rest of the ruins, and just focus on Machu Picchu

• Food places recommended include:

• Kusikuy for the legendary Peruvian Cuy,

• Jack’s Café for a hearty brunch and no wifi so that you pay attention to your friends

• Mr Soup – for great soups, noodles, and a slight Asian flavour

• Whatever the locals are ordering in San Pedro Market

• Prepare more USD before you come, it could get costly to draw money

• If you haven't booked your trek 3 months in advance, you can forget about the Incan trail, but all others should have vacancies. You can actually even do a 2D1N trip to Machu Picchu.

• Whatever it is, don't try the Inka Cola!

#Peru #Cusco #Ruins #Inca #SouthAmerica #UNESCO #Chocolate