Inca ruins, dressed up fried guinea pigs and lots of chicken. Cusco has lots to offer

With the choice of a 22 hour bus ride along dangerous roads or an hours flight from Lima to Cusco, we took our first flight since arriving in South America which turned out to only be a little plane. With Jen getting seat number 14E I found it highly amusing that the seat didn`t even exist! I happily took my 14D seat whilst Jen nervously placed herself in 14F hoping that no one would come along ranting some Spanish at her. Thankfully, no one else had that seat number so it all worked out fine in the end.

Arriving at the airport in Cusco we flagged down a taxi and our hostel directions told us that taxis shouldnt really be more than 15 soles which is about 4 quid. Jumping in the taxi and asking how much it was, Jen thought she heard him say 20 soles, so I reasked him and he said yes 20 soles. Getting to our hostel, we handed over 20 soles only for him to claim that the ride was 40 soles. I`ve never seen Jen kick up such a fuss in my life, she was having none of it which led to an argument on the street for about 10 minutes, At one point the taxi driver was trying to argue it was more as it was a new car (as most taxis out here are old bangers) to which Jen replied "I don`t care if it`s a new car", she was proper on the defensive and refusing to budge. After literally 10 minutes of going back and forward over the same argument, the taxi driver finally gave up waving his arms frantically and we strolled off to our hostel for a cheeky sleep after checking in.

Waking up we had a little stroll around our local area, which turned out to be quite a struggle, with a massive festival going on. With Peruvians loving a bit of fried Guinnea pig, we thought we might come across it a bit, but we didn`t expect the poor little house pets to be fried up and then dressed up like Paris Hilton`s dog.

I told you it was a big festival....with us capturing this shot from the balcony of a food place which was actually really nice. We got a mixed BBQ type thingy for dead cheap which had sausage, blood sausage, steak, liver, heart, intestine and chips. The heart was actually amazing! And the festival was pretty cool to see too with about 20 people struggling to carry a big float around the central plaza. We had found out in our earlier travels that these religious floats actually weigh about a tonne (you´d think they would put them on wheels or something).

On the way back to the hostel we bumped into our Australian friends Sheldon and Meagan who we had originally met on the Navimag boat through Chile and again in Arequipa. They were with another couple we hadn`t met but they seemed sound, with the bloke rocking a poncho and offering me some Pisco which was randomly in a hollowed out cow leg. Didn`t make the alcohol taste any different though.

Getting back to the hostel Jen was knackered so went bed but I wasn`t ready for that yet so hit the hostel bar and met 3 people. Well if you can call it that, one guy was from London and was really sound but had just left his girlfriend as she went off travelling eslewhere (assuming they met out here) and he was heartbroken. The second person was a girl who was relentlessly trying to chat him up and he was having none of it as he was upset about his mrs obviously. She didn`t even acknowledge my arrival as was too busy chatting this poor chap up. The third person was a Dutch guy who seemed sound at first but turned out he loved himself a little too much and also had a massive rant about how all French and Americans are arrogant idiots. Having met two really nice people out here who I`ve mentioned a few times (Cyrille and Derek), one being French and the other American, I was quick to defend these groups, much to this Dutch guys disgust. Putting up with him for another hour or so, I decided to call it quits and head to bed shaking the sound Londoners hand and walking off, I think the Dutch lad kinda got the message!

The next day we got up in the morning in the knowledge that Jen`s two mates (Jane and Lindsay) from Kent were coming out to meet us today in preparation for the mighty Inca trail. With the day pressing on with still no friends, Jen was getting paranoid as she waited anxiously whilst I was trying to cool her nerves. Two hours later they showed up and we all went out to the best cafe in town, aptly named "Jack`s cafe" and had a bad ass burger after waiting for about 20 mins, but the wait was well worth it. We also bumped into another Navimag friend (Sarah) who we had also met in San Pedro and we agreed to meet up later at a bar for some drinks. So later that night we went out to try and find her but couldn`t find the meeting place, which we later found out didn`t exist, as the guide book was out of date so the four of us went and ate at a restaurant which had a little Peruvian band playing which was pretty cool!

Getting an early night, we woke up the next morning so we could jump on our tour to the Sacred Valley. We stopped off from our bus journey at a little settlement where we could see local women weaving and there were also plenty of people selling local crafts.

There was this little kid running around in traditional clothing with a little puppy which produced a few "arrrrrr" moments from the folk on our tour!

We also stopped off at a place which produces a lot of silver and Jane purchased a few silver goods using my amazing Spanish haggling skills to get the price down a bit (which actually worked saving the equivalent of 15 quid!). One of the bridges wasn`t completed so we had to jump off and walk over this bridge and look around until the bus went round the long way.

After that we all had a buffet lunch and then arrived at our first Sacred Valley stop.....Chincheros, which were some Inca ruins where you could see their agricultural steps and ruins where they used to live and also military quarters.

From a distance you could appreciate the style of architecture, with us only visiting one small bit of the ruins with most of it a 3 hour walk around the side of the mountain.

Being Incan`s they used to worship the Pachamama ("Mother Earth" translated) and buried their dead in the mountains as it was closer to their gods in the skies, all the holes you can see in the picture below are tombs in the mountain next to the ruins.

There was also a cool view of the Sacred Valley, only for it to be blocked for you guys by us two with our fake 2 pound 50 sunnies and my amazing barnet.

After having a look around we jumped back on the bus and set off to the second Inca ruin site, Ollantaytambo (and if you were wondering, no I didn`t remember these crazy names, I googled them just now). This was pretty impressive, with stepped terraces going up for 15 flights, and at the top a sun temple.

Looking back from the top there were ruins on the other mountain too.

This was the top, with a sun temple where the people are standing (I`m sure it would have been more impressive when it stood but now it was just ruins at the top).

And here`s me pissing about inside the ruins, as per normal.

Looking back again at the opposite mountain the Incan`s liked using their imagination and used to worship two bits of rock that they claimed were faces, this being one of them. When pointed out by the guide it took us ages to actually make out what they were on about but it`s zoomed in here so you should be able to make it out. Still just looks like a bit of rock to me.

After a hard walk up those massive steps, it was time to come down and the girls stopped for a pose. Apparently it`s not cool to ask someone else to take the snap as I was dedicated cameraman.

Getting back onto the bus we realised that two girls weren`t here. Waiting for about 10 minutes our bus moved round the corner to the central plaza to see if they were there which they weren`t so our guide ran off looking for them. 30 minutes later she finally returned with them. Turns out they had come down early as we had said to meet at 4pm but our tour overran a bit, then they walked around the plaza and not finding us got a taxi to the local train station looking for us and then came back and were finally found wondering around aimlessly.

Ready to go we set off on a bit of a bus journey for two hours to our final stop. Half way through Jen super needed the toilet but we weren`t stopping much to her dismay. She seemed to gain little comfort by bugging me to ask the guide if we could stop or how long it would be but there was nothing I could do. Finally arriving, Jen ran off the bus and hit the toilet missing the first part of our presentation by some local women on how they prepared alpaca wool ready for use for knitting. She didn`t miss much though and got back for most of it.

They also had guinnea pigs running around inside as most places do out here so I obviously had to catch one.....not that I actually did, the guide caught one for me....they`re quick little buggers!

Being our last stop, we purchased a few woolen goods and jumped back on the bus back to cusco. After missing out on a Thai meal in Lima, I was dead keen to grab one here as there were two places offering the cuisine. We picked one that had a more lively atmosphere and chowed down, ordering wontons and satay alpaca to start to share as well as garlic bread (goes with thai right?!) and then various thai main courses. The food was probably the best we had in the whole of South America apart from the Argentinian steaks.

The following day we had more ruins to go and see, but this time we had to walk to the bad boys. The first port of call was a place called "Sacsayhuaman" which is pretty much pronounced "Sexywoman" which we had fun saying. On the way through Cusco though we stoped to watch some traditional dancing.

...which was a bit weird with some folk having masks on with massive konks, and no one could explain why the random person dressed up as a nurse was there, she wasn`t even local judging by the skin colour!

Anyway, after a beast of an uphill walk, we arrived at the base of Sacsayhuaman, where we were charged double as much as we thought we would as the guidebook was wrong once again claiming we could just pay for here, when you could only get a entry ticket into four places, with this being one of them. Lindsay obviously got a little too close to the rock. I can see why, it`s a pretty sexy rock, guess that`s why its called Sexywoman.

Me and Jen opted for the model pose, would you guys hire us?!

We have no idea what the site acutally was, it kinda just looked like a bunch of stone walls when you took it all in. We had earlier turned down a guided walk which in hindsight might of been a good idea, especially as he was only charging 4 quid.

But we did get a good view of Cusco from the top.

After not really knowing what we were looking at, we walked around the corner to Cristo Blanco which is a little more obvious as to it`s meaning. It`s a statue on a hill (surprise surprise) and this time, an immitation of the mighty Christo Redentor, but nowhere near as big or impressive.

Finally we went on to find another ruins site called quego which was only a 5 minute walk from the statue. However, the directions were non existant (as is usually the case out there) so we wondered around for a while before I had to ask a random chap where it was and then came across the site, which was massively unimpressive, just some rocks but eaves dropping in on an English tourguide, we found out it was a site used for ritual sacrifices. But the most interesting thing about it was these random doll things hanging from the tree! Weird.

Unimpressed we strolled back to sexywoman, stopping for an icecream which was the equivalent of 25p, but I`m not even sure it was worth that with it`s weird bubblegum flavour. I did however manage to pet this little alpaca which Lindsay randomly named Monty. Still not sure why.

Another long day with lots of walking about, we went to grab a drink in the Irish bar (claiming to be the highest Irish bar in the world). In the bar we weirdly bumped into two other Navimag boat friends, Rory and Fi, so we had met the entire group of Navimag friends we made in the space of 3 days which was odd! 

After picking up some supplies for the forthcoming Inca trail we decided it was time for some dinner. This turned out to be a right mission. All of us pretty hungry we ordered half a chicken and chips each which the guy struggled to understand and we only received 2 halves between the group. We tried to explain that we wanted 3 more half chickens and he clearly didn`t understand so he sent over the bloke who was supposed to understand us who failed also. So we just ate our 2 half chickens and tried to explain again what we wanted after we had finished. Struggling to say we wanted another 3 half chickens. The guy finally looked like he knew what we were trying to say and went away only to come back with another 5 half chickens so now we had too much! We all found this hilarious at the time and it has since been refered to as "the chicken incident" and I`m sure it will be for a long time to come but I doubt you lot find it as funny as we did.

Just as we thought it couldn`t get any more amusing, we asked for the bill which came out and only charged us for 3 half chickens instead of the 7 we were given. With us in histerics we put 100 soles down expecting 11 soles change and the douche bag brought us back 21 soles. All in all, a pretty random chicken experience which we all found hilarious. Thinking the cheapness of the night was over, we went to our hostel reception to pay knowing we were up early the next morning and having stayed 3 nights we were again trying to hide our laughter as the woman only charged us for 2 nights. After paying up and getting out of there with a grin on our face we returned to our room only for the same woman to turn up a while later realising her mistake meaning we had to pay for the extra night, which wasn`t actually extra, it`s just what we owed!

Getting to sleep fairly early, many of us had dreams of chicken, well I did anyway. Waking up the next morning at 5am, we awaited for our pick up to tackle the glory that is the Inca trail.....more to follow.

Lima again.....with some interesting pottery!

So after a few drinks we`ll see how this blog goes! We had some drinks and a bucket with 7 shots in it for 2.50. Breaking the bank I know!

Getting to Lima with our Norwegian friends was a doddle, rocking up at a different hostel to last time but still in Miraflores. It was literally over the street though, not exactly exploring the city! We got in pretty early though and unsurprisingly our room wasn`t ready so they unlocked the tv room and let us sleep in there on the bean bags.

Knowing that the kebab place was over the road that we had visited on our first lima visit, we couldn`t be arsed to look around for food so went back there and ordered the kebab which was possibly the best kebab we have ever tasted! It wasn`t like English 3am kebabs, it was actually proper meat and it was lightly curried and it was just awesome!

Getting back to the hostel we met back up with the Norwegians we travelled here with and got involved with some drinking games that the hostel put on (which was just ring of fire). With drinking in full swing I found myself out of drink and was looking for a way to get some more alcohol. No one really knows how it came it about but the Norwegian guy bet me that I wouldn`t suck on his big toe for a long island iced tea (obvisouly didn`t know me well enough) so exactly that I did, and it wasn`t just a little lick, I got the whole thing in there and earnt my long island, much to the disgust of Jen who had to actually move away from the table as it made her feel ill! I didn`t care though, free long island iced tea. Bonus.

Toe sucking done with, we headed out to hit the club. Me being a little drunk I was in Maccy D`s mood so we strolled over the road to the 24 hour Maccy D`s at 2am only to find that the so called 24 hour fast food joint had actually just closed only to reopen at 10am. Being quite drunk I was absolutely disgusted and threw a little tantrum and Jen had to end up taking me home leaving the Norwegians to go out by themselves.

The next day I was oblivious to what had happened the night before and we took on the cultural activity of going all the way out of town to a museum which was actually pretty cool. It had a whole bunch of pottery and other cool stuff from Peruvian history including all the stuff which came before the Incas (which is actually a lot!), such as this shizzle below.

 

This crazy little thing which looks like a bunch of knots on some sting (which is exactly what it is) was the Inkans way of communication. Obviously not bright enough to come up with email, telephones or even the carrier pigeon back then, they developed a way of comminicating by putting dates and things in a sequence of knots on strings and then sending a runner for 120 miles a day to take a message. They still haven`t worked out what these knots mean to this day but still pretty dam interesting.

 

Different to pretty much all museums (as Jen pointed out, suppose that degree came in handy for something), is that they allowed you to go into their storage room where they had literally thousands or artifacts which didn`t make the display room which was pretty cool to see.

Finally we looked around the erotic section of the museum where they stored pots with massive members (if you will) as they valued the god of fertility mainly for their lands so that they could grow crops. Well that`s the official story, I just think they were somewhat horny!

 

 Fertility ehhhhh?!

 

 Hmmmmm......

 

 

The next day and being back in Lima I obviously had to go and check out more footy shirts so we went back to the big market and had a look around, much to Jen`s pleasure. She sure loves checking out footy shirts. She`s so used to it now that she can actually tell what most random shirts are!

After a look around the same old market, it was time for something new so we went to the catacombs located underneath the monastary in the centre of Lima. Getting there, we paid our entrance fee and waited for the English tour, with 3 Spanish tours going infront of us, we wondered if an English tour was ever going to happen after waiting for about half an hour. But finally us and one other couple were called for the English tour.

It was such a bizarre place when we finally walked around, with hundreds of human remains, the weirdest of which was this tomb where they decided to lay the bones out in some kind of circular pattern.

Coming back from town we swung by the famous world record breaking fountain park which was pretty cool. They had about 13 different fountains, all in different styles, with the water lit up in different colours.

They had a walk through tunnel fountain where it was pretty impossible to walk through without getting a soaking!

Jen was after a dramatic photo again and went for this one for the blog.

And this was the tallest of the lot, with the Allianz Lima stadium in the background (more interesting than the actual fountains if you ask me!)

Lima part 2 was finished after some interesting events. Time for our first flight since flying out to Rio, to Cusco this time....where we would meet Jen`s mates from home to take on the mighty Inka trail up to Macchu Picchu.

High in Huaraz (not like that!)

With our bus getting in 2 hours earlier than we were told we weren`t too impressed. Now you might think this was a good thing but when your bus is supposed to get in at 7.30am and we turned up at 5.30am it wasn`t so great, mainly as our hostel had arranged to pick us up from the bus terminal: Being 2 hours early though, we weren`t that keen on sitting around for all this time but in the knowledge that we had a transfer sorted, we hadn`t even bothered to write down the hostel`s address or even the dam name of the place! Our frantic attempts at going through lonely plant books, checking the map at the bus terminal to see if we recognised the street name, asking the local chap names of hostels, had all failed. All we knew was that it was up a hill!

Getting more and more annoyed at ourselves we took a taxi and told him the name of the hostel which he claimed he knew and after taking us to a place which clearly wasn`t it, we realised he had no idea where it was but just picked us up for a fare. We told him to take us back to the plaza we knew was withing 4 blocks and paid him a pound for his amazing services. Now being pretty dark, full backpacks on and not really knowing where we were, we didn`t really know what to do, but a helpful chap told us the general direction of the hostel. We nervously set on our way looking like easy bait if anyone wanted to mug the lost backpackers! Randomly walking along, I thought I recognised a road name from finding our hostel online so took Jen down it. Instincts kicked in and for some reason I lead us down another road and saw a minibus of people getting picked up for a days excursion which meant a hostel had to be nearby so even if it wasn`t ours they could tell us where ours was or at least give us a map or let us stay in reception til the sun came up. Fortunately it was our actual hostel and we had survived what was probably a silly idea of walking around a new town with no idea where we were going. Asking for trouble really but it`s all good as here we are about 6 weeks later as I catch up on this blog! The eye stye disappeared too if you were worried (as I know you all are!) (Jack has failed to mention my contribution of guessing we were going up a hill as described in their directions I vaguely remembered)

As we rocked up to the hostel though we saw these adorable little kittens (yeah I used the word `adorable`....and what?!) and checked in and went straight to sleep!

Waking up about midday we went for a walk around after actually receiving a map, not much to report there other than some chickens hanging up on almost every stall and also a market which had dried meats in which was possibly the worst smell ever!

Getting back after this peutrid smell we booked into some treks that Huaraz had to offer, seeing as it was already at 3,300 metres above sea level. We booked into a trek to a glacier at 5,000 metres the next day and a well known tourist trek called Laguna 69 the day after that. With my long hair starting to take shape the guy at the hostel said that I looked like Oasis, pretty vague description but I got the point. If it ain`t Pique it`s one of the Gallagher brothers.....not sure which one is better to look like but he didn`t pick!

With not much on that night, we chilled out and watched a movie called "Men of Honour" with Cuba Gooding Jr and Robert De Niro purely because of the clown bus operater on our way here. They had put this exact movie on in English to start with so I was quite excited as I knew it was a good film. About 10 minutes in though he put the Spanish subtitles on which was fair play, everyone can now watch. 10 minutes after that though is where the bus conductor gained his douche bag status, he only went and put the Spanish dubbing on as well as the subtitles so now it was no good to us! The clown had even managed to put the first chapter on repeat which we endured 3 times before someone went and said something. Even then he couldn`t fix it so a passenger had to. Anyway back to the story, we found that same movie in the hostels collection so banged it on.

After this I was excited to be offered a 5 a side game of footy but it was in an hour. So we ordered a pizza which turned up about 15 mins before I had to leave so wolfed down what I could and went out leaving Jen to watch some other movies. Shame it was pissing it down with rain and I only had my 3 pound primark plimmies as the most appropriate footwear, forgot to pack my footy boots. They didn`t put that on the essentials list at STA travel. Anyway off we went and I scored a bad ass curling goal about 10 mins in which made them all think I was pretty good....shame the rain came down harder and from there on out I couldn`t get any grip and fell over almost every time I got the ball. The new tactic was walking about which is pretty much my tactics at footy in England anyway!

The next day we went off on our glacier hike but along the way we were taken to some natural springs where the views were amazing.

We also stopped off at some 100 year old cactus type things. They were pretty massive as you can see.

Oddly, they grow for 100 years, flower and then die and fall over...what a life. But it did provide for some entertaining pictures as you could get inside the base bit. I thought it would look like a good grass skirt but it wasn`t deep enough so looked more like a tribal pair of ankle reeds or something.

We were also promised ancient cave paintings which I was really excited about but another bus driver gained douche bag status as he slowed down for them but didn`t stop and as they were on the other side of the bus to what we were on, all I caught was a glimse. Very uncool mr driver.

Anyway, we got to the base of the glacier walk and set off through the mud, some people chose to take the mules to get up there but we were in Macchu Picchu training so walk we did. Was only me Jen and one other guy from the group who did walk. But we made it to the top after 30 mins and here`s proof!

The top however was not the end and we had a short hike to the actual glacier.

I suppose it might have been impressive had we not have walked on the mighty Glaciar Moreno back in Argentina. O well, it was still cool in it`s own little way.

Back down we came and chilled out again at the hostel and awaited our trek the next day which was supposed to be amazing.

The next day came and off we went on another bus and got to a stopping place for brekkie but I was more interested in the little swing of course!

They had a whole bunch of different sweetcorns hanging up, apparently Peru has over 300 different varieties.

Back on the bus and off to the valley where we would begin our walk, stopping at a beautiful lake at the bottom. If the Laguna 69 at the top was as awesome as this we were in for a treat.

Getting to the small settlement where we would start there was a cool river, and some animals grazing, very picturesque.

Of we set on our trek which was 3 hours up and 2 down but we were at altitude so it wasn`t as easy as you might think so we slowly plodded along, stopping where we could for photos, anywhere we could for an excuse to rest! This hut was a good enough reason.

The view from back down the valley where we had walked from so far.

And the ice capped moutains in the background, thankfully not where we would be trekking to!

After a very hard 3 hours of trekking we arrived at Laguna 69 at 4,600 metres. Sadly it was a bit overcast and was pretty cold and dingy so it wasn`t as impressive as it could have been. We both thought the lake at the bottom we stopped at was better, could have stopped there and saved ourselves some time and effort!

Time to come back down though after our sandwich break. This annoying cow decided he wasn`t going to move out the path however so on tired legs, we had to clamber over the rocks to the side. Cheers cow.

But back down we did eventually get, and strangely we were first which we didn`t think we would be as we were pretty knackered so I made Jen take a picture of me on our empty bus as proof we were first down!

I really fancied a thai for dinner so we went to check the place out but they had a sign on the door saying "shut for fumigation"! You`d think they might just put shut, but we won`t be going there that night or the next!

The next day was day of sport! Excited that Tigers were in the final I got up early and put on ESPN at 8am as the time difference meant that was when it was on over here. However, the ESPN channel was diffferent out here and had Champions League prep on. Not too impressed I went to the hostels computers and tried to stream it only to get a rubbish connection and purple players running around. Again not impressed but was saved by a guy with a laptop who knew a link and had nothing better to do so let me watch with him on there....legend. After warning my brother of Northamptons chances of winning the league 6 months ago (at the time he laughed but seems they almost made it!) I was pretty nervous, but then Dillan Hartley got sent off cos he`s about as clever as a fly trying to resist the temptation of a light bulb and had to go and say something to the ref...big no no in rugby. On Leicester went to win which I`m not sure they would have done so easily against 15 men.

Later I watched the Champions League final with a couple from Munich so I obvioulsy took the chance to support Dortmund. Didn`t help though. After a good old day of sport I was excited to see it continue with the offer of more 5 a side, this time not raining. Back on went the plimmies and the Leicester shirt and we set up a game between 5 Peruvians vs the rest of the world (as they coined it) comprised of two Brits, a Norwegian, that German guy I just mentioned and an Argentinian. On the way we came across a 4x4 which had backed into a ditch so all of us puffed out our chests and picked that bad boy up out of the ditch. If you are wondering.....yes....4x4s are extremely heavy!

We gave them a good old spanking much to their dismay as they always do these "rest of the world" games and normally win so they were slightly annoyed to be getting battered. At one point I even did a Haji and trapped the ball inbetween my feet and hoped between two of them and went on to score....footy fans will appreciate that!

However, as the game went on, my fitness withered (to be fair we were at 3,300 metres) and Jen managed to catch this shot of me breathing out my arse, hands on hips were a constant for the last 15 mins!

After getting chummy with the Norwegian guy from the game as he was in our room, we went out with him and his Norwegian friend for a dead cheap Lomo Saltado, the national dish and then we all jumped on a bus together back to Lima as we discovered they were staying in the same hostel as us.... (more football shirt shopping here I come)