Day 74: Cusco, Peru

Dan, Stefano, and I took a night bus from Bolivia and arrived in Cusco, Peru at the disturbingly early hour of 4am. We were all extremely disoriented as we exited the bus, grabbed our bags, and made our way into two separate cabs. Dan and I asked the driver to take us to a hostel we had attempted to contact the day before; we knew we would be arriving at an odd hour, and drove there hoping we could check in to a room right away. It turned out that despite what the hostel had told us, there wasno availability. At that point, our cab driver told us he knew of a great, "economical" hostel that would put us in a room on the spot. We were too tired to object, so agreed to take him up on his offer.

It wasn't a huge surprise that the hostel he took us to was pretty bad. But all we wanted was to get back to sleep, so we put our bags in the room and passed out. A few hours later, we were woken up by the shouts of teenagers. We later found out that the hostel was mostly filled with rowdy Peruvian high school students on a weeklong vacation. Suffice it to say we spent as little time in the building as possible. 

Once we were up, we ventured out into the city of Cusco. I went to Peru a few years ago with my family, so I was eager to revisit the area with fresh eyes. Cusco is a charming city with lots of well-groomed plazas and stone-paved streets. One thing that surprised me as we walked around was how many other tourists there were. It hadn't occurred to me on my prior trip, but having been to so many other places in South America, I was now well-aware of just how much of a tourist destination this town was. It was clear that the restaurants catered to foreigners; nearly everyone in the town center was hunting down gringos to sell them something; and, whereas in Bolivia the women dressed in a certain style out of custom, in Cusco, many seemed to dress that way for profit (as in, "come take a picture with a traditional Peruvian!"). Even still, we enjoyed walking around and looking at the buildings and landscape.

Overall, our first day in Cusco was pretty uneventful. In the afternoon, we booked a three-day trek to Machu Picchu that was due to begin the following morning. We also had one last dinner with our friend, Stefano, before our itineraries would set us on different paths (fortunately, he is due to visit New York in November, so we will get to see him once we are back home). Dan and Stefano both got alpaca for dinner, and I opted for a less intimidating chicken-based entrée. All three of our dishes came with a side of rice and fries, which we would soon become all-too-familiar with. After our meal, Dan and I went back to our hostel and packed small bags in preparation for our three day excursion.