Our bus ride from Copacabana to Cusco was pretty eventful. It was split into two, with the first bus taking us through a very easy border crossing and then changing at Puno, a small town on the Peruvian side of Lake Titicaca. The whole journey took around 11 hours and we did it during the day as we had heard bad things about the safety of the night buses. It wasn't until our second bus that things got interesting. When we were boarding the bus a Peruvian lady started loading up any available space she could find with boxes of biscuits. There must have been at least 50 which, initially, I thought nothing of until half way through our journey the bus was stopped by customs officers who came immediately to the top deck and confiscated every one of her boxes and marched her off the bus! I can only imagine what she was smuggling but it definitely seemed as though those guys had received a tip off from someone. Shortly after all this commotion another lady boarded the bus, came straight to the top deck, put down an enormous bag on a small stand in front of some passengers and opened it up to reveal an entire cooked lamb! She proceded to hack it up with an enormous cleaver, causing bits of meat and fat to splatter everywhere, and then sell it to anyone brave enough to try it! We were very thankful we were a few rows back so avoided the fatty spray and observed that only the locals on the bus had the stomach to sample it! Finally, when she had hacked up and sold all she could and left the bus, we were joined by a young salesman trying to sell us a miracle cure that heals everything from indigestion, through anemia, to cancer! He claimed, in a very loud, long speach, that all these were caused by eating fast, fatty foods (slightly ironic considering how many people were still licking away the grease from their lips). He continuously showed us a picture of the fast food that was going to be the death of us, as well as a rather graphic picture of a mastectomy. Safe to say, he sold nothing, his only achievement being that now everyone on the bus wanted a fizzy, death inducing, drink! It was quite a relief when we finally arrived in Cusco and after a short taxi ride we were safely in the confines of our friendly hostel, Pisko and Soul.
We had just under a week in Cusco before we headed off on our long awaited Inca Trail. During this time we had to pay for the trip, hire rucksacks and walking poles, buy water purification tablets and basically make sure we had everything we needed for the trip. To be honest, apart from the daily trips to the bank to continually withdraw the maximum amount as we had to pay for the trip in cash, the rest of the jobs didn't take us that long and left us plenty of time to explore the city.
Our first port of call was to take part in a free walking tour. We had done an excellent one of these in Buenos Aires and were not disappointed this time round. It is an excellent way to get to know the city and to visit all the places we may never have seen. Our guide, Yonathon, was very enthusiastic about the city and took us places that weren't known that well to tourists as well as giving us tips to get money off in those that were. One of the highlights of the tour for Gen was the chocolate factory, with free samples of the chocolates as well as some delicious cocoa tea, it was with ease that they sold us a class called 'bean to bar' for the following Monday. As I was not nearly as excited about it as Gen and it was fairly pricey, we decided that Gen would go on her own on the proviso that she would take a lot of photos and come back with some uneaten chocolate, the latter being a big ask as good chocolate has been thin on the ground in this continent so far! Gen kept her promise though and came back with some amazingly tasty chocolates that she had made herself during the class and we wolfed them down with a cup of tea that evening. I'll let Gen tell you about the the class:
It was amazing! The first thing that hits you as you approach 'choco museo' is the wonderful smell of chocolate wafting towards you, and when you get inside it's even better. There were three other people doing the class; a Columbian girl and a Canadian couple who live in Chile. Considering this, there was a scary moment when I thought the class might be in Spanish but I was ok, everyone spoke English, I was off the hook. My Spanish isn't quite good enough for that! We donned our aprons and our teacher explained to us the 10 steps involved in making chocolate, starting with the cocoa bean. As the process was explained we got to have a go ourselves, so we eagerly toasted, peeled and ground some cocoa beans before making and trying out three different delicious hot chocolate drinks and finally making our own chocolate masterpieces. I very carefully made 10 different flavoured chocolates, with 2 of each flavour to share with Ror. My personal favourite was puffed quinoa, a bit like a crunch bar! It turned out it was the Canadian girl's birthday the next day, so the staff made a chocolate-banana-kiwi extravaganza, complete with candle and 'happy day' written in chocolate. We all sang happy birthday in Spanish and then gorged ourselves! The class lasted about two and a half hours in total, we were plied with endless samples and, as Ror said, my chocolates were tasty as! What a way to spend a morning. Back to Ror:
Cusco is a very beautiful and deeply religious city with seemingly a church or cathedral on every corner and it was easy to pass the time wandering round exploring the area. The main square was impressive with well maintained gardens and a huge cathedral looming down over it. All the shops around it had paid to have the intricate wooden balconies restored and all had to keep to the strict colour scheme laid down by the local government for their shop signs, which was black, making the whole area look neat and ordered. I think it's the first time I have seen such a plain looking McDonalds, KFC and Starbucks! Even though it was a shame to see that these fast food joints had invaded such a sacred space it was good to see that they had clearly invested a lot in the restoration amd maintenance of the balconies.
We had a few nights out with friends that we had met in different countries around south America and enjoyed several pisco sours; a Peruvian cocktail of egg, sugar and pisco. Surprisingly tasty! One night we even went to a quiz night with Liam and Hannah, who we met in Copacabana. None of us were particularly confident about it and were mainly there for happy hour until we were joined by James, who had come on his own on the off chance he might be able to join someone's team. The more the merrier for us, and when it transpired that he had spent the last 4 years writing the questions for the weakest link we knew we were in for a good night! Out of the 60 questions that were asked I think our original foursome answered 2 with James comfortably answering the rest and winning a very tasty bottle of Argentinian Malbec for our team!
During the week we had plenty of time to sample the food and drink around the city. One of my personal favourites was 'pork street', where every restaurant sold the same 2 pork dishes at the same price. We went there with Chrisroy and Lauren who we had met in florianopolis and I enjoyed some very tasty roast pork. Afterwards we found a restaurant that served up a tasty veggie sausage baguette that Gen tucked into while I enjoyed my first PG tips in 8 months. Amazing!
On the eve of the Inca Trail we headed for a very early dinner at an English run restaurant and ordered what we hoped were the safest, least food poisoning dishes on the menu before getting an early night in preparation for a 0530am pick up. The food was good and the sleep restless in anticipation of the next 4 days. We had heard so many different stories about this trek from so many travellers it was hard to piece together what it was actually going to be like and when the 5am alarm went off we drowsily, but excitedly, got ourselves ready.
Come on without, come on within. You've not seen nothing like the mighty quins. Premiership won. Now just to qualify for the final. It's in the bag.