Cold, Carcasses and Cuzco

Written 02/21/09

This is why you need to research: Upon arrival in Lima, we realized that it takes approximately 30 hours to get to Cuzco by bus. If you look at the map, that seems near impossible. It only took 26 hours to get from Ecuador to Lima and that is a much bigger distance when I measure it with my fingers. Well my friends, we have encountered a little something we'll call the Andes mountains. After just coming off the 26 hour beast, we weren't exactly thrilled to be getting on another so we bit the bullet and bought a flight to Cuzco. Supposedly it was one-hour long, and was only $50 more than the bus ticket. Sometimes $50 is worth 29 hours of your life.

We got up at 3:00 am to get to the airport by 4:00 to catch our 6:00 flight. We boarded the plane and randomly were in the first-class seats again. Not complaining. Then we sat. And sat some more. Then we all got off the plane and went and sat at the gate again. Then I fell asleep for about two hours and we finally left Lima circa 9:30 am. We hopped over the Andes are were in Cuzco by 10:30.

Side note: Here on our sister continent, they spell Cuzco like that, and like this: Cusco. I feel partial to the “z” because it's a completely underutilized letter so for me: Cuszo, it is. For you, choose your own adventure.

Literally, as we got off the plane we were short of breath. Cuzco is about 11,000 feet above sea level and acclimation did not come easy. We felt sick immediately. And we realized we were freezing. Another lovely side effect of being in the mountains. Now we realize we have nothing to complain about but for the first time in two months we had to get out the fleeces and winter hats.

We drove to the hostel down a street that was something out of a movie. It was packed with people selling vegetables and meat. Literally, (vegetarians, might want to skip this part) there were chicken and pig and cow carcasses everywhere. Just piles of chickens that were de-feathered but not beheaded or de-clawed piled on top of each other and ladies walking down the street holding the feet of a chicken is each hand. Pig heads and cow carcasses hanging from the ceilings of all of the storefronts. It was a sight to behold. I was really tired and feeling sick so I failed to get a picture, but I promise to get one when we go back there in April.

We basically spent the rest of the day sitting around trying not to die from the altitude. I also slept a lot so that if I did die, it would be a peaceful death. During this time, we thought that actually trying to hike the Inca Trail in April would be our death. And it might be seeing as how it's four days of 8 hour hikes, three of which are straight uphill.

Needless to say our first impression of Cuzco was no fun at all, and we got a bus ticket to go to Puno on the eastern boarder of Peru for tomorrow. We are kind of having to haul bum a little bit here as our Brazilian visa must be stamped by March 7, so we have to jet through Bolivia and get to the border in the next two weeks. We plan to like Cuzco much more next time around.