Cuzco!

Well that was easy. 8 am flight out of Piura, bingo bango, enjoying life in Cuzco by 1 pm. If truth be told, there’s a bit of stress over the logistics of getting all our gear packed up and onto a plane (or even a bus). We’re not set up for bus and/or air travel. Too many individual pieces. And, of course, it’s a huge gamble with the bikes, which were brought to the airport, “as is”, as in no external packaging of any kind (we wouldn’t even know where to start looking for a bike box). It’s always a toss-up what the official airline rules are for bikes, and then even more of a gamble how the person at the check-in counter is going to react. All it would take is the guy to say “must be in a box” and it’s game over. But, the gods were with us, and the guy calmly asked us to bring the bikes through and hand them off to the baggage guys. In a hilarious 3-stooges parody the baggage guys were pretty baffled and had a good ole’ fashioned 3rd-world conference on how best to deal with them, but in the end, they just picked them up and the next time we saw them was on the baggage carousel in Cuzco. All at no extra charge! Air Canada: are you taking notes?

So Cuzco, elevation 3326 m, population 350,000: wow, yet another beautiful colonial city surrounded by the Andes. We weren’t expecting much, and simply looked at Cuzco as our base for planning our trek to Machu Picchu. But upon arrival we were awestruck, again, by the magnificence and grandeur of it all. You simply can’t have enough pictures of churches in this part of the world. Definitely a ground-zero gringolandia with more camera-touting tourists than you can shake a stick at, and complete with Starbucks, McDonalds, and KFC. But somehow they have managed to hold onto the look and feel of the place, and have just enough indigenous women selling goods on the street to keep it real.

Cuzco was the original capital of the Inca empire, which prior to the Spanish invasion in the early 1500s, extended from Ecuador to Chile, making it the biggest empire in the Americas. Cuzco’s fate was however, doomed to the same fate as every other Inca city. The Spanish took it, killed anyone who stood in their way, stole everything of value, tore down what they didn’t want, and rebuilt it in their image. Et voila, another fabulous colonial city built upon Inca ruins. Beautiful, yet sad.

As alluded to, Cuzco is ground zero for tourists interested in Peru and is the main launching pad for organizing a mission to the infamous Machu Picchu. One of the biggest activities here is just chillin’ and waiting out the recommended 3 or 4 days of acclimatizing. At 3300 m, anyone arriving from sea level (i.e., on a plane) needs to give their body time to adjust to the elevation, lest a bout of AMS, aka acute mountain sickness, aka altitude sickness, could ruin the trip, if not their life. As a chronic AMS guy myself with a history of a near-death AMS episode, I’m not taking any chances. It’s actually a great excuse not to do anything physical, and just relax. Amy, on the other hand, appears to be fine with the elevation and is doing her best to walk down every cobbled alleyway in town.

Speaking of altitude, the time-honoured natural remedy for AMS in this part of the world is the consumption of coca tea, which is tea made from the leaves of the coca shrub (or just chewing on the leaves). It’s everywhere, everyone partakes, and there’s a big pile of it at our hostel for anyone to dig into. Funny story. I’m kind of a “when in Rome” guy, so I’m thinking “great, I’ll just drink coca tea all day long”. Interestingly, after some google research, we learn that it’s not really “tea”, as in the innocuous herbal brews we are used to. Coca leaves are in fact the raw ingredient for cocaine. Tea made from the leaves, while generally considered harmless (but illegal in many countries like the U.S. and Canada), contains the coca alkaloid that makes cocaine what it is. The big difference obviously is that the tea contains a relatively milliscule amount. But, it’s not nothing, and the general rule of thumb is to treat coca tea like coffee. i.e., don’t drink 15 cups of it before bed time, which is generally what I was doing. I was wondering why my heart was racing as I crawled into bed and then I stared at the ceiling all night (I thought it was the altitude). So now, in addition to the AMS, I have to wean myself off the coca addiction!  J

Lounging around the hostel for a few days has also allowed us to catch up on a few housekeeping items like dealing with two flats and a broken spoke. That Patagonia windbreaker that got shredded on my wipeout back in Ecuador has been at the bottom of my pannier waiting for just the right little old lady with a sewing machine to appear. Yesterday, for the outrageous price of $2, I had the jacket stitched back together and Amy couldn’t even tell where the fix was. Nice.

Amy’s favourite pro about hostels is the use of a kitchen so we can make our own food. Well, OK, so Amy can make our food (I’m the sous-chef and bow to her gastronomic skills). Last night we managed to gather up Amy’s favourite ingredients (basil, garlic, onions, tomatoes) and made a delicious blue-cheese pasta. Along with a not-too-bad 5-dollar bottle of Peruvian malbec (Peru makes wine...who would have thunk), it was fantastico. Although a wonderful dinner overlooking the Plaza de Armas the night before was pretty stellar, and prompted Amy to declare that Cuzco is her favourite city so far.

OK, so what’s next? As mentioned, this has been our launch pad for our mission to Machu Picchu. Our plan at this point is to do the Salkantay Trek – a 5-day unguided mountain trek to Machu Picchu. The classic multi-day approach, aka “The Inca Trail”, has morphed into a gringo gong show requiring permits, guiding companies, and reservations at least 4 months in advance (which we don’t have obviously). The Salkantay Trek, on the other hand, gets you to Machu Picchu and has no permit/guiding/reservation requirements. Way more our style. So that’s the plan. We leave tomorrow. Look for the trip report in about a week from now. Chao.