After the "hardships" of Bolivia, Cusco seemed to be paradise on earth - clean, paved(!) streets. Shops selling everything you could possibly need (or not for that matter). A huge choice of restaurants (with menus in 4 languages). Irish pubs. What more could you ask for? The veneer started to strip after about 10 minutes walking around, as everyone was touting something. "Restaurrrrant Miiister?¨, "Internnnnet??", "Free drinksss senor???", "Postcard????", "Shoeshine?????", "Bus ticket Sir??????", "Taaxxxii???????¨. Not to mention being offered about every drug under the sun. Yes, Cusco is Ibiza 2 miles up in the sky, except it is lacking pot-bellied Germans wearing socks & sandles and English lager louts wearing Man Utd. football shirts with a facial colour to match. But then again there was enough multi-coloured Gore-Tex floating about to give you a headache.
OK, so you are in Cusco for one main reason - Machu Picchu (another one of Peru´s attempts at making Dyslexics* never visit the country. You would think having a place called Titicaca would be enough for one country...). So the next day it was off down by bus into the Sacred Valley to Urubamba and then to Ollantaytambo (it just gets better...) before getting the train to Aguas Calientes (the village at the foot of M.P.). The valley is absolutely stunning, snow capped peaks all around with Inca ruins strewn along the hillsides. The ruins at Ollantaytambo are especially impressive. The Incas were incredible stone masons, they did better with stone hammers than most of your current day builders could ever do.
Aguas Calientes is the biggest tourist trap this side of Disneyland, the only reason for its existence being the proximity to M.P. Food is about three times the price of other places in Peru and a beer nearly costs 2 Euros!! Bloody `ell. Even the train ride from Cusco to A.C. costs 56 dollars return (3 hr journey). Now, considering you can go from La Paz to Lima (1200 km, 24 hours) for about 10 bucks, you will see that PeruRail are laughing all the way to the banco. Even the 20 minute frigging bus ride up to Machu from Aguas costs 5 dollars! Entry to Machu itself is 20 dollars, but thanks to the lovely girl in STA Travel Frankfurt, I got in with my student card for a measly 10 dollars. Ain't it grand being a mature student??
Once I had got over the fact that I had spent well over a 100 dollars to get there, it was time to have a look round Machu. It was amazing, sure. Great, but I suppose the whole hype of having seen it 200 times on TV and in every second National Geographic, diminished the effect slightly. The buildings are truly impressive, but I think the most wonderful thing about the place is the setting, which no photo will ever do justice to. Machu is literally built on a tiny plateau and on both sides of a steep ridge, but all around are towering mountains, covered in lush jungle. I trekked around for half a day, even climbing Huayna Picchu, the mountain which looms behind Machu. Suffering heat-stroke, sun-stroke, dehydration, altitude sickness and touristophobia I climbed into the 5 dollar bus back down and made my way back to Cusco for a beer ("Wannaaa Beeeer Senor?").
* Did you hear about the Insomniac, agnostic, dyslexic?
He stayed awake all night wondering if there was a Dog...
0 comments:
Post a Comment