Kamikaze Special

Wednesday 13th April 1988

I got up at 09:00 hrs. and had a shower at last, followed by a clean set of clothes. Luxury! There was a strike on in Cuzco and demonstrations against the exploitation of natural gas by the Shell Oil Company. Gas had been found in the south of Peru and the locals felt that they should benefit rather than Lima and the gringos.

Many Indians marched with banners and anybody spotted working was pelted with fruit and vegetables. All the shops had their shutters down and the protesters looked as if they were really enjoying themselves. The army looked on with indifference.

We went to the Faucett Airline office and sneaked furtively through the Judas gate in the shutters to confirm Eddies flight to Lima. On the way back I bought a couple of apple turnovers from the bakers, who were also operating through their Judas gate.

Back at the Hostel Suecia I wrote some postcards and started to catch up on my diary. At 12:30 hrs. I went down to the Post Office and then onto the train station for Puno on Avenida Sol. Here the guy on the gate told me to come back tomorrow at 06:30 hrs.

I went back to the Plaza de Armas where I met Eddie, Harry, Diana and Mark as arranged and we went for a steak dinner and a few beers. Afterwards Eddie and I walked around the smelly food market and ended up in the Tourist Office. Here I found out that the train to Puno took twelve hours and cost 600 I/- in the luxury buffet car. The distance between Cusco and Puno is 332 kilometres (206 miles) by train. It departed at 08:20 hrs. Monday to Saturday.

I wrote some more of my diary and as evening fell I went out to take some photographs of Cuzco and buy some music cassettes of typical local music (although it required copious amounts of Pisco to make it sound good).

I woke Eddie up at 19:15 hrs. and we had a bit of fun changing a $100 US dollar travellers’ cheque for $50 US dollars cash and $50 US dollars’ worth of Intis, before meeting the others for dinner. We had filet migñon and then went on to Quatuchay Peña where we drank pisco con limon while local groups played folk music and the local drunks smashed pots and punched each other, rather spoiling the atmosphere.

The Peña was like an ancient inn with stout wooden furniture, uneven floor and pigskin wine sacks hanging from the ceiling. We moved on to the Kamikaze Bar at 23:30 hrs. for Machu Picchu cocktails and consequentially enthusiastic dancing.

Later on, we tried the Kamikaze Special, a mixture of pisco, Coca Cola and beer, which was an acquired taste. Eddie and I ended up chatting to a couple of Danish girls. We left with them at 03:00 hrs. and had a couple of fried egg rolls with them, standing in the rain at the tricycle stall while the drunks rolled passed.

Back at our room we sold the girls our excess food for their Inca Trail trip the next day before crashing into oblivion.