Cusco, Peru (inc. Machu Picchu)

After being released from the medical clinic and a quick day of rest, I finally headed north towards the Inca capital of Cusco to catch up with Nick who was due to set of on the Lares trek the next morning. As well as being the point of departure for almost all treks and trains to Machu Picchu, Cusco was one of the more picturesque cities we had seen in a while (more on this below).

With the delay from Puno, I quickly set about finding a 2 day/1 night tour (via train) to the famous Inca ruins. After much searching the cheapest price to be found was US150 all inclusive. My original plan was to simply go to Peru Rail, source my own accomodation in Aguas Calientes and hike up to Machu Picchu the next morning. After careful consideration, the time and effort of this wouldn't justify the negligible savings on offer (approx US15). Furthermore, Peru Rail is still in shambles after the land slides earlier this year, and to catch the train involved a series of local buses to Ollantaytambo, and another Peru Rail bus to the makeshift station in the middle of nowhere.

Long-story-short, the organised tour went smoothly, and by virtue of the cheaper train being overbooked, I scored a free upgrade to an earlier departing 'new backpacker' train, arriving back to Cusco at 9ish pm, rather than 2ish am.

The one downside was the tour of the ruins was due to be at 10.30am with Cosmos Tours. Not a big deal as I arrived at 5.30am, but the adjacent mountain of Waynapicchu (glorified viewing platform) only has a 7am and 10am timeslot (200 people each) due to safety. The tour time forced me to do the former which was prior to the masses of fog clearing from the ruins. The result was effectively no view. To make the situation worse, it was clear by 10.30am as I reached the bottom. Anyway, I won't rant on about Incan society, culture etc as I don't really know much about it, but I find the cities location complexing.

On another note, we heard of another Inca site, Choquequirao, approxiamtely 2 days trekking each way (no trains or buses) that was discovered in the 1940s, is still being uncovered, and is considered to be better, bigger, cheaper and whatever else than Machu Picchu. The tour companies seemed to think it would have similar popularity in about 10 years (after Machu Picchu perishes from over-tourism?). Hot tip!

Despite Machu Picchu, Cusco is quite a tourist friendly city with a plethora of poor quality and inexpensive restaurants, bars and nighclubs. By playing off the relavent promoters against each other one can have an extremely cheap night of drinking. During the day, there are a couple of aesthetically pleasing Plazas (de Armas and San Francisco) which were the sites for a number of May celebrations over the weekend and the centre of Cusco's (apparently all legitimate) massage industry. Unforturnately the massage industry isn't exactly bookig and they get close to zero business.

"Hello friends, massage"
"No, gracias"
"Maybe later? Maybe tomorrow, friend?" (as you're about 10m away)

There is also an abundance of cheap markets and stores to buy 'artesian' wares (we're still convinced that there is a massive factory somewhere in Bolivia or Peru manufacturing this gringo clothing and accessories). Bargaining is an absolute must - I managed to get a Inca-style stone box thing down from S/120 to S/50 (probably could have tried for more as it's realistically worth S/25).

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