Romania
2001
Travels Peru (Aguas Calientes)
19 September 2001 10:32 & 10:34
If you want a real adventure, rather than the 'pretend' one I had getting to Itaperuna to see Thielys, choose a child in Peru...
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The official tourism information offices here are disgusting compared to any other country I've been to. For a start, most of the workers speak only Spanish, and those that can speak English seem much of the time unable to understand simple requests for information (even if delivered in an American accent).
If perchance they do understand what you want, they don't have the information you want anyway. For example: "What does the Cusco visitor's card allow me to see?" The answer came several minutes later in the form of a hand-written list. "Yes, I think that's all." I didn't bother asking if she had a map showing them in relation to where we were. (The scrappy map they give out as standard has the info place about a block away from where it is now, and on the other side of the road.) The LP guide says there are 222 registered tour operators in Cusco. Maybe they'd kick up a stink if the info centres gave out useful information. Or actually sold the Cusco visitor's card.
I'm now in Aguas Calientes, a one and a half hour walk or about a NZ$10 bus ride down the road from the Machu Picchu Inca ruins. Nice enough place, a mere 2000m altitude, compared to 3300m for Cusco. I'll see the ruins tomorrow and make a day of it before catching the afternoon train back to Cusco. The entry price (to the ruins, not Cusco) has doubled from that listed in the Lonely Planet guide, with no reduction for a second day. For some reason they keep playing Happy Birthday (in English) as the loud 'background' music from all the shops here. Weird.
The trains from Cusco/Cuzco/Quzqo to Puno [by Lake Titicaca] do not leave every day, so I have to waste an extra day in the horrible place. (Yes, place names here have three or four spellings, just to make things more complicated.) I guess you can expect me home in October. More on that later, when I figure out how much I'll have to push things back. Trains from Cusco to Machu Picchu only run in the mornings (so I couldn't fly in from Lima and catch the train straight out again) and the various options for the train have changed completely from the LP guide. Not having reliable info from even the good old LP makes things difficult.
OK, Cusco isn't really too bad, but it IS very frustrating info-wise. It's actually very cool wandering along streets with old Inca walls on both sides (or even on just one side). The Incan stonework is incredible, both in Cusco and the ruins I've seen outside of the city. The Spanish stonework in comparison is really bad.
I'm trying various ways of dealing with people trying to sell me stuff. When I arrived at the train station this morning (on automatic) I just said "No señora" to a woman selling film, then repeated it to the next person. It looked like he was selling plastic bags (later discovered to be raincoats). I realised what I'd said as I entered the station. I've also fended off my first possible pickpocketing [a little kid]. He won't be trying that again in a hurry. It's possible that he was just reaching out to undo the bow I had made with the extra length on my backpack straps.
Chau, tchau, ciao. (Spanish, Portuguese, Italian/Romanian and everyone else.)
God bless.
Ian
8 )PS. Attempt 2. Very slow email/Internet here.
PPS. Take 3. The girl here is trying to reconnect the modem on the computer next to me. Hmmm. I think I'll just wait until she succeeds. She isn't doing to well at present. ... Hmmm. PC. ... They're blaming it on the telephone lines and the rain here. It's been down 20 minutes now.
PPPS. It was 30 minutes. I persuaded them to let me restart their computer with the modem attached. [It did the trick. I saved the above email as a text file on the hard disk temporarily.]
Love, Ian
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