Cusco and Puno

Chris wrote the following blog but his computer at the internet cafe is special and will not accept our flash drive, mine seems to be fine with it, so here is Chris and his thoughts...

We arrived in Cusco from Nazca via yet another stinky bus ride. We had to sit next to the toilet for 14 hours. The only time it didn’t smell like a bus toilet was when someone was smoking in there. Then it smelled like an Amsterdam coffee shop. Either nobody else noticed or nobody cared. It wasn’t my business and I was happy that it didn’t smell like a dirty toilet for five minutes.

We got to Cusco on time even though the bus was about an hour late leaving, which was nice. Cusco is by far the most touristy town we have been to on this trip. When you walk around near the main plaza, you are constantly bombarded with requests to find out more about someone’s tour package to Macchu Pichu, to eat at their restaurant or to buy their various arts and crafts. I understand that most of these people are very poor and that there is a lot of competition for the tourist dollar, but it gets old after a while.

Aside from being hassled constantly to buy things, we did have a good time in Cusco. Stefani’s friend Liz and her friend Matt came out to visit. I’m sure Stef will have more to write about that. We all went on a city tour arranged by our hostel that turned out to be pretty lame. The best part was probably when we got away from the group to enjoy a happy hour drink while watching all the people in the plaza. We saw a few archeological sites of interest on the tour, but we were pretty much rushed through them. We were supposed to take another tour the next day through some ruins in the Sacred Valley, but we cancelled it and just hired a taxi driver to drive us around all day. This cost half as much as the tour would have and we didn’t have to ride around with a bunch of people on a tour bus. We also got to make our own schedule, which made things a lot more enjoyable.

Cusco is quite a bit more expensive than other places we’ve been in Peru, but we still managed to find some good places to eat for pretty cheap. There are lots of places recommended by the guide books, but once a place gets in there they usually jack up their prices. We found a great burrito place across the street from a great pizza place and had dinner twice one night. I’m sure both these places will wind up in the guide books soon enough, so I’m glad I got to go there before the word got out.

We are now in Puno on the coast of Lake Titicaca. The altitude here is around 3800 meters or 12,500 feet. It is the highest navigable lake in the world and home of many indigenous people of Peru that live on various islands on the Lake. We will be visiting some of these islands over the next few days. I am looking forward to this, but it comes at a great price to me. This Sunday is the Indy 500. Since 1984, I have missed this event only once in 1990 and I listened to it on the radio that year. We also missed the opening of the new Indiana Jones movie, as Cusco has no movie theater. Eventually we will be in a town that has one, though, and will get to see it. The Race, however, is a completely different story. I don’t think I would be able to find it at any of the bars in Puno and it doesn’t matter anyways, because we will be in the middle of Lake Titicaca on some island that doesn’t even have electricity. Oh well, I’ll be back next year. And to all of my friends in Indy…Have fun at the Race and have a beer or two for me.