After an uneventful flight to Cuzco, we are picked up by our driver and taken to our Hostel. It is a real cool town at almost 11,000 feet of elevation (we feel it). The doorways are small in our hostel (maybe 4.5 feet high). My buddy Steve is 6 feet 5 inches and I am 6 feet 3 inches tall. We look funny ducking into our room, but it is ok for $34 per night. Nevertheless, we stand out as tourists in this town with our height and bump our heads frequently entering restaurants, with trees and various other low hanging items.
The town is mobbed with people trying to sell you something at the main square
. Because we stand out so much as tourists, kids come running across the square trying to sell us massages, various shirts, necklaces or just asking for money. The kids sometimes hit our pockets in the back, not sure if they are trying to pick pocket us or just checking to see if we have a thick wallet. I was warned of kids creating a diversion so others can pick pocket tourists. I feel kind of like Ted Striker in the old airplane movie as he dodges various people trying to sell him items in the airport, initially being polite and saying "no thanks," but eventually elbowing people out of the way and throwing punches to get where he is going. I say "No gracias" to the kids meaning "no thank you." It does not stop them. I repeat it, time and time again. Eventually, they say "maybe later?" and I say "Yes, maybe later." Steve and I find this very funny and after our second day in Cusco, we skip the "no gracias" step and go right to "maybe later." It becomes our favorite phrase to use. Communicating to each other, "Hey, do you want to go in this store?"--maybe later
. "Do you want to hike that mountain up there?" "Maybe later." We no longer use the word "No." Everything is either "maybe later" or "Sure, let's do it." It is strange that so many places offer massages. I later find out that although some are genuine massages as we know it, others are either escort services or prostitution rings with young girls similar to Thailand. I am told that there are often young daughters that are sold for prostitution because families are poor and need money. I think about the young girls that were offering the massages, they were 12 maybe 14. Are they prostitutes? It disgusts me to think about parents getting this desperate and I can't think of many things worse in this world than the evil experienced by the old men tourists paying for these child prostitutes or the unknown futures of these children after growing up this way. Although it is easier to not think about these type of events, this will be one item that I will be remembered for a long time and I will try to contribute in ways to help better these causes
.
The town of Cusco itself is beautiful and despite the pushy sales tactics, I like the charm of this town a lot and enjoyed learning about the the lengthy history in this town. It has Spanish, French and some Italian architecture. The locals tell me how the Spaniards decorate their homes different from how the Incas did, putting definitive animal marking on their roofs to indicate that they are Spaniards. Many of these marking are still evident. I am horrible at reciting history, but basically the Spaniards were originally in the Lima region of Peru and had no interest in Cusco or the mountains. The Incas started building control in Cusco and the surrounding mountains and the Spaniards said, wait a minute, this belongs to us. The took Cusco away from the Inca control, but still let Inca govern Cusco for a bit. Eventually, they imprisoned Manco Inca and began several wars against the Incas often doing things such as cutting the hands off of the Incas when they captured them
. The Incas fled to the mountain towns and many battles were fought in these high altitude mountains and the Incas developed the villages on the mountainside. Machu Picchu was the highest village where very high class Incas lived. It was very difficult to get to and was never either found or attacked by the Spaniards. The story from our group was that the village of Machu Picchu developed a plague that started killing all the people in the village. The Incas were very spiritual people that believed the Gods caused harm on people and villages when they were mad. After significant deaths in the village of Machu Picchu, the people of this village left the village in a hurry leaving many possession and amazing stone architecture behind. The Spaniards killed many of the people at the other villages around Cusco and although many of the Incas scattered to various farmlands, the large populations were attacked.
As we go on our Machu Picchu hike, we encounter many campocinos (farm people) as they call them in Peru
. They speak Quechuan a native language that the Peruvian Government recently mandated the local schools for the farm people teach both Quechuan and Spanish to preserve this culture. As I meet these farm people on my journey, I find out that many our Incas and I am so impressed with their heritage and they have great pride to tell me that their Grandfather was Inca or their mother was Inca. It is interesting to hear what generation they are and how it influenced their life. Some live off the land still, with the men working on the land planting potatoes predominantly while we were there, but working with animals also. Others are engineers and take great pride in building and designing things similar to the detailed design process that the Incas brought to this region. The females often worked around the house sewing and doing house chores. The kids had very little. Their animals were there toys. No electricity, no socks with cold weather, not too many friends, but amazing land to live in and such great energy and attitudes
. They will turn out to be the what I remember most about my journey to Machu Picchu.
Steve and I eat at Irish bar called Paddies on our first night. The food is excellent and the town is fun. There are many Brits and people either returning from Machu Picchu or going to Machu Picchu. It gets dark early and we are exhausted from our travels. The town of Cusco is very safe around this the 3 x 3 block square til about 10PM according to the officers, but we retire at dark most nights is right around 6PM. On the one night we stayed out til 11PM, we came out to a square that transformed from a populated square with tons of locals to a sketchy third-world country where neither Steve or I felt safe. We took a taxi the three blocks to our hostel in a vehicle that was a type of vehicle that was like a mini Yugo and was very interesting watching Steve and I try to fit in the back seat of this car. Kind of like "High Tower" on police academy if you can imagine.
I spent the days in Cusco walking the streets, getting Pizza or something similar
. We did try Alpaca one night and it was incredible. This is like a llama in looks and the meat is tender and very good. The next table over got the local special Guinea Pig. It came to the table with the full head attached, eyes and all. The poor girl took pictures of it, but had a real hard time eating it as it looked alive.
The cobblestone streets had many great deals. Most people only spoke Spanish and I negotiated in Spanish on everything that I bought. I think that I bought some things just because I wanted to negotiate rather than because I needed it. It was fun and even when I spend more money that I should have for something, it did not amount to very much. Admittingly, sometimes between trying to think of Spanish words to say in the negotiation, calculating the exchange rate to US dollars and trying to be creative by throwing in many items to the deal, I end up paying more than if I just bought the item outright without a bundled price or without all my negotiation
. For example, I walk into the small store next door (similar to a american convenient store) upon arriving and make a grand entrance with the young senorita and ask "Cuanto costa por el aqua con gas?" --- how much for the sparkling waterr? It is $0.30 each. I tell them in Spanish that my friend and I drink lots of water and we are visiting for 4 days. How much will they charge me for water if I buy all of our water at his store and get a couple candy bars and some gum? I think she offers a good deal and I agree only to find out that I end up paying $0.10 more per water. Not sure how that happened, I either confused them with adding too much into the equation or they pulled a quick one on me and made an extra $0.40.
I make my losses up shortly later when I go to get my backpack fixed. It ripped somehow during baggage handling and is in pretty bad shape. I would throw it away, but I need it for other travels. I find a small seamstress on a side street and after some broken spanish, she agrees to sew it for me (i think). I come back later that day and the bag is complete, looking brand new for $2. She is very thankful for my money and I am amazed looking at the work she did on my backpack unable to identify the seams or see any weakness in the area that she sewed.
I continue on with my negotiations with hats, gloves and anything else. Although it is fun, I am ready to move on from the negotiations after a couple days and start just holding my hand up to the various sales people that approach me in the streets.
Arrival to Cusco
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Cusco, Peru
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2025-02-07