Cusco

I´m a little behind on where I wanted to be with writing this, but I´m going to try to fill in the last week or so with a couple of posts.

Daniel, Kacey, and I arrived in Cusco the morning of May 5th after over twenty hours of flying and sitting in airports. Everything went smoothly buut it was a pretty grueling day of traveling. We immediately went to the hostel we had booked hoping to check in early and get some sleep, but to our dismay we weren´t able to check in to our room for a few hours. It didn´t stop us from sleeping though, we went immediately to the common room and passed out in a few bean bag chairs until check-in time. We all wondered if the other people in the hostel referred to us as the sleepy Americans because we kind of shut down the common room for a few hours with our napping.

After some good sleep and against the advice of people familiar with the stomach problems of altitude sickness, we went out for a giant meal of traditional Peruvian food. The alpaca, lamb, kiwicha (a cous cous like grain) and papas a la Huancaina hit the spot after not having a real meal since the McDonalds we ate in the Lima airport.

As we walked around Cusco we kept seeing posters for a classic rock cover band playing at a bar called Siete Angelitos, and figured that it sounded like a good plan for the rest of the night. A set of the Doors, ACDC, Led Zeppelin, and other assorted bands would be fun no matter who was playing it. We didn´t know we were in store for one of the greatest rock performances of all time.

The bar reminded all of us of the dive bars we´ve enjoyed for the last few years in New Orleans and we got to try our first rounds of authentic Pisco sours. The stage looked like it could only fit a band the size of The White Stripes on it, but somehow they had a guitarist, bassist, lead singer, keyboardist, and full drum set. When the performance started, the lead singer, with hair down to his back and a shirt buttoned down to his navel belted out song after song of poorly pronounced classic rock hits. He couldn´t hit many high notes and obviously didn´t have a firm grasp of English, but what he lacked in talent he more than made up in charisma. With his stage presence and wicked guitar solos provided by the most talented musician of the group they had us and the rest of the crowd singing along with every song. The keyboardist, bassist, and drummer provided a solid We all agreed it was a supremely successful first night.

The next day we went on an all-day tour of various markets and Incan Ruin sites. The highlights were probably the Pisac Market and Ollantaytambo Ruins. I always love the outdoor markets in foreign countries. Pisac was a classic. It had locals selling beautiful hand-made crafts for outrageously low prices and tourists heckling to get them down even lower. Daniel pointed out that haggling was one of his favorite things to do in foreign countries since it is somewhat of a lost art in the U.S.

The Incan Ruin sites were all impressive in their magnitude and quality of work. ollantaytambo was my favorite because it had huge decorative terraces and Incan faces that were naturally formed in the mountain side that rose above the fortress. We also learned about the Incan Imperial style of building. This includes giant boulders cut perfectly like puzzle pieces to fit together without the need for mortar. Incans used this style for important religious buildings and the houses of Nobles. The tours of the sites were all interesting, but they were blown out of the water by the Inca Trail and Machu Picchu which I´ll get to later.

The next day we met up with a family friend of ours named Luz who took us out to a fabulous traditional lunch and gave us advice on various things to do around Cusco. We all had a great time and agreed to meet up later to see one of Luz´s favorite local bands at a bar on the Plaza de Armas. We didn´t think it could compare to our first live music experience in Peru, but they turned out to be even better. They had a flute and zampoña player that absolutely owned the stage. He would switch between multiple insturments during each song and hit notes that I didn´t know were possible. the band was Cusqueñan and played traditional music that was a nice change of pace from the classic rock a couple nights before.

That about sums up the most important highlights of Cusco, It is one of the most picturesque cities I have ever seen. Its set in a lush valley with little houses lining the hills and was a great city to introduce us to Peru. You can really see why the Incas chose it as their capital.

Many thanks to Luz for her hospitality and I´ll write about the Inca trail soon. Pictures will come soon, I can´t seem to get them to load on this computer.