The alarm clock sounded like a fire alarm at 03:45 hrs. I got up and grabbed my gear and knocked up the night porter to let me out of the hotel. The streets were deserted apart from the cats outside the Presidential Palace. A Military Policeman pissed in the road while his mate listened to the radio.
I found my way to where the colectivos were supposed to be and was told by a newspaper vendor that they didn’t start until 06:00 hrs. I walked to the Plaza Dos de Mayo and got the same story, no buses until 06:00 hrs., so I had to resort to a taxi.
The battered Volkswagen Beetle to the airport cost 200 I/- which was much less than I had expected. The airport was quite efficient and there were no problems at the Faucett check-in. After a wait and a change of departure gates I boarded the DC-8 and we took off shortly afterwards at 07:10 hrs.
The scenery outside the window was spectacular when it wasn’t obscured by clouds. Jagged sierras, patchwork fields, muddy red/brown winding rivers, convulsing snaky roads and snowy mountain peaks, many of which protruded above the clouds.
After fifty minutes of flight time we landed in Cuzco. I retrieved my baggage and eluded the swarm of hotel touts and taxi drivers to find the local bus into town. For 5 I/- we bounced along a muddy track into town.
The local indigenous Indians looked very poor and sported white top hats which looked as if they were made of cardboard. Most had muddy bare feet. I crossed the pleasant Plaza de Armas and booked into a communal room in the Hostel Suicia for 90 I/-.
There seemed to be a multitude of pretty blond girls in residence, but my first priority was breakfast. I went out into the Plaza de Armas and after doing a circuit I settled on the Piccolo Café which seemed to be quite popular.
I had a cheese omelette and chatted to a nice German girl that I had seen at the airport. It was a pity that her English and my German were so limited. I then went on walk about in the town looking at the interlocking dry stonework Inca walls which formed the foundations of new buildings on Hatunrumiyoc and Loreto.
Cusco, often spelled Cuzco; Quechua: Qusqu, is a city in southeastern Peru near the Urubamba Valley of the Andes mountain range. It is the capital of the Cusco Region and of the Cusco Province. Its elevation is around 3,400 metres which can cause altitude sickness in travellers arriving by plane.
It was the capital of the Inca empire until the Spanish conquest in 1533. Lonely Planet says “For Incas, Cuzco was the belly button of the world. A visit to this city and its nearby ruins tumbles you back into the cosmic realm of ancient Andean culture – knocked down and fused with the colonial imprint of Spanish conquest, only to be repackaged as a thriving tourist centre. The capital of Cuzco is only the gateway. Beyond lies the Sacred Valley, Andean countryside dotted with villages, high-altitude hamlets and ruins linked by trail and railway tracks to the continent's biggest draw – Machu Picchu”.
In mythology the Inca race was created by the great god Viracocha who caused them to be born from the sun god Inti. The first eight Incas were thus born at Tiwanaku or, in an alternative version, they emerged from the sacred Pacaritambo cave, and then they migrated down to the Cuzco valley.
Led by Manco Capac (or Manko Qhapaq) and Mama Ocllo, the group fulfilled the earlier prophecy whereby they should settle where their golden staff could be easily driven into the ground. Before the Incas could prosper, though, they first had to defeat their local rivals, the Chanca, a feat they achieved with the help of stone giants, the pururaucas.
This event did have a basis in reality, as the Incas did indeed defeat the Chanca in 1438 CE. Thus, the Inca capital was established. The name Cuzco may derive from either qosqo, meaning 'dried-up lake bed' or cozco, a particular stone marker in the city.
I continued southwest past the small Plaza Regotuo, across the Plaza San Francisco and down the the market and the "Santa Ana” Railway Station. Cusco is the home to two independent railway networks. "Ferrocarril de Santa Ana" is the railroad to Aguas Calientes (Machu Picchu).
The railway has a branch line from Pachar to Urubamba in the Sacred Valley. This railway has a length of 185 kilometres and is narrow gauged 914 mm. "Ferrocarril del Sur" starts at Matarani port, goes through Arequipa to Juliaca, and ends in Cusco.
Branch lines go from Juliaca to Puno at the shores of Lake Titicaca and from Matarani to Mollendo at the Pacific coast. The railway is standard gauge 1435 mm and has a length of 940 kilometres.
There were a lot of Indians on the streets selling crafts, posing with llamas for tourist photographs and sitting in groups on steps chatting. Down in the market I got my baptism of fire. Twice a group of well-built Indian women managed to trap me in an “accidental” huddle against a wall.
The third time, a well-timed and no doubt well practiced incident with a crowd attempting to board a bus nearly relieved me of my passport and valuables. I fled down the road with a pocket, slashed with a razor blade and a splurge of yellow conditioner/shampoo running down my arm.
The gang of buxom hags melted back into the crowd empty handed. I went back to the hotel to wash off the goo and discover the gaping hole in my Rohan trousers. Pockets have a zip across the top otherwise the pocket would have fallen open when slashed down the side along the seam of my Rohan bags (trousers).
The cut was about a centimetre too small to allow the removal of my package of valuables. I had a lucky escape. I will have to think more carefully about security in future. I settled down to doze in the dormitory and chatted to my roomates.
In the early evening I walked around the main plaza, bought some postcards and then went to the Post Office. They had no stamps, but they did have a franking machine which was a viable alternative.
I went out for an evening meal with Andrew, a medical student who had been “working” in Bolivia. We ate in a restaurante which looked splendidly posh but was relatively cheap. Andrew returned to the hotel because he had to be up at 04:00 hrs. for the Machu Picchu train the next morning.
Machu Picchu is a 15th-century Inca citadel located in the Eastern Cordillera of southern Peru on a 2,430-meter (7,970 ft) mountain ridge. It is located in the Machupicchu District within Urubamba Province above the Sacred Valley, which is 80 kilometers (50 miles) northwest of Cuzco. The Urubamba River flows past it, cutting through the Cordillera and creating a canyon with a tropical mountain climate.
I went to checkout the famous Kamikaze Bar. I was early at 21:00 hrs. and the staff were still decorating the rustic interior with streamers and paper chains strewn from the black ceiling beams. The white walls were decorated with mysterious black drawings and music blared from a garden shed at the far end of the hall.
I bought a beer and sat about. Later on a Peruvian group started playing in honour of the third birthday of the Kamikaze Bar. The music was loud and strident and quite a few locals left. By 23:30 hrs. I too had had enough and went back to the Hostel Suecia.
Here I joined a group of Scandinavians at the huge table in the common hall, drinking blended Scotch whisky from black plastic film containers. Photographic film used to come in plastic cups with snap on lids, about the size of an egg cup or shot glass.
This continued until about 02:00 hrs. It was difficult to stop one Swedish chauffeur from talking enthusiastically about cars and driving, the passion of his life and his work.
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