Settling into Cuzco
Trip Start
Apr 02, 2005
1
12
13
Trip End
May 15, 2005
Cuzco, Peru
Wednesday, May 11, 2005
Fun Fact: Cuzco is the oldest continually inhabited city in South America. And it shows. My full day in Cuzco and I decided to walk around the center at a leisurely pace. Again, other than the insane amount of traffic congestion, its spectacular. There are plenty of art galleries, museums, and churches to keep you busy for a few days. One was fine for me though. ;-)
Once I had taken in the city it was time for a "vacation day". So I got up and had a quick breakfast at the hotel and it was off to the park. Spent the entire morning just reading a book with a nice view of Cuzco below. Not very interesting, but quite relaxing nonetheless. Later on I headed to the Plaza and perched myself at a place called Cafe Cafe. I met up with some rather boisterous Scottish folks and chatted with them until sundown. This rolled into a change of venues to a nearby pub for a game of pool and some poker. The only downside was the language barrier. Its hard enough to understand a Scotsman when they're sober, and its near impossible when they're got a few drinks in them. No matter... I've spent a good portion of this trip talking to people I can't understand and at this stage it made no difference.
After my day of rest it was back to the tours with a trip to the Sacred Valley. There are roughly 5 or 6 Sacred Valley tours per day with various different companies. It was my luck to get one of the last companies that had space available. There was only one small catch. The entire tour was in Spanish, and none of the people on this tour could speak English. So while I can show you some amazing photos of the ancient Inca cities and give a vague history about their function, I wouldn't say that I'm now an expert. I did take in much more than I thought I would and I was able to make a few new friends on the way. Fair enough.
One of the guys from the tour was a native Pervian from Lima. He was travelling alone as well and decided to take me under his wing for a night out on the town Peruvian style... He was able to get some information off of the locals and we hopped in a cab, en route to an out-of-the-way venue. I was expecting some sort of underground discotech treasure chest. What I found was something much more dangerous. At this point there are three men in our group and we walk into a club filled entirely with freshman college girls on their class trip to Cuzco from Lima. So there are 60+ girls dancing to techno, by themselves, and then we walk in. While this may sound like paradise lost to some of you (and I'm not naming names - Chris) it was just a little bit awkward for us to be there. They, on the other hand, were more than happy to see a few men added to the mix. The chaperones that were guiding the trip, however, were not. And we decided to leave shortly there after. This is one of those cases of very bad timing... about ten years to be exact. So if anyone has a time machine handy, please let me know.
Now I'm on to my last stop before heading home: Lima.
