With high hopes for Cuzco, described to us as a beautiful city where you can relax and see the many nearby ruins and ornate buildings of the town, we were a little sceptical as we weaved through the all too familiar dirty, poverty ridden streets at the end of our long bus ride. It wasn ´t long after checking into our ¨nice¨ hotel that we were introduced to the city we´d heard about. The main square, like a lot of the other plces we´ve been was indeed beautiful. Surrounded by huge cathedrals, with little children feeding pigeons and framed by large hill sides embossed with Cusco´s emblems into the steep, terraced farm lands surrounding the city. We were just as quickly introduced to the sly little attitude-riddled youth of the city who rarely took ¨no Gracias¨for an answer to their pleas for us to by what ever goods or services they were peddling. The most brazen acting being that of 2 young kids, one maybe 12 and the other even younger, who persued a group of 6 or 7 of us for 5 or 6 blocks after taking offence to our initial polite declines. When they brandished a small crochet needle with the intent of popping Roberts (an English lad on our tour) birthday balloón, Lisa got nasty!! ¨Young man! that is not a very nice thing to do, and we´d appreciate it if you´d leave us alone...... Shouldn´t you be at home on a school night?¨ Bless her. She can´t seem to shake her proper English manners even when she´s cross. I tried a different tack with the older of the two by turing their ¨making it personal¨ tactic back on him. I introduced myself and inquired as to his name (no reply) and laid a guilt trip on him about how being harrased gives us a bad impression of the people of Cuzco in general and we in turn tell all our friends how rude and disrespectful everyone here is, and that this in turn keeps people away. Anyway, they finally left and it wasn´t eveident as to how much impact my little speach had until Robert and his girlfriend Robyn were approached the next day by the same duo, and when reminded that they were the ones with the balloon they tried to massacre the previous night they turned on their heels and dissapeared into the ever present crowd.

The main purpose for our stay in Cusco (Qosq´o in Qechua (local Inca language) was to visit the ancient Inca ruins of Machu Picchu (old mountain) not Machu Pichu (old penis). Having conceeded to taking the train and bus to the site Rob and I were lucky enough to have 4 extra days in Cusco to explore the less famous, but not less spectacular Incan ruins around the city and throughout the Sacred Valley, as well as visit the beautiful cathedral in the main square. Our visit happened to coincide with a farmers strike over the proposed privatisation of the local water supply that would see the local farmers, who could barely afford to replace the sandles on their feet after trekking their mules and sometimes children laiden with the crop, that they are only able to harvest once a year, kilometres from the steep terraced paddocks in which they worked bent-backed and barehanded, pay for the water that global warming was taking away from them after millenia of free supply from the glaciers hung up in the surrounding mountains.

Anyway..... although we felt for the farmers, their action nearly kept us from seeing the old mountain. While we accompanied the rest of the group to the starting point of the Inca trail safely, and bid them a teary farewell (tears of frustration, envy, and fear of the unknown future) our visit to the ruins relied more on the passability of the road from Cusco to Ollantaytambo, where we were to catch the train to Aguas Calientes (which means hot waters), the town at the base of the mountain on which Machu Picchu is perched. The original plan for us, pre strike action, was to catch a train from Cusco to Aguas Calientes on the day before our visit, stay the night there, enjoy the hot springs, and then make our way up to Mahu Picchu early in the morning to meet the triumphant group as they finished the mighty Inca trail. INSTEAD! The strike was held on the 2 days prior to our visit of the ruins. Blocking both rail and road. Our gallant tour guide, appropriately named Alex, was unable to find even an entrepreneurial taxi driver who would brave the strech of road affected by the strike at an inflated cost to us, on either of the 2 days. SO! under the cover of darkness at the early hour of 3 am the morning after the strike and on the moring that we were to see the ruins we set off by taxi (with one seatbelt) to make our train that would leave Ollantaytambo at 5:40am. Having travelled the road several times so far on various tours etc, none of the journeys taking over an hour and a half, stops included, we thought 3 am was a bit of an overkill BUT! Half an hour into the journey we started to see evidence of the action from the previous two days. Boy did these farmers know how to cause a disruption. It started off with hiking boot sized rocks spread for several tens of metres across one of the lanes every Km or so, then there were small cow sized rocks pulled off the banks beside the road in amongst the smaller debris. SO needless to say we got little...well no sleep as we peered from the back seat into the path illuminated by the high beams of the taxi as it rounded bends and crested hills to find more debris and on coming traffic picking their way along the hard to distinguish path through it with their high beams blazing. As nerve racking as it was we made it to our destination with time for a hot cup of coca tea before our train departed, and according to a lovely, young American family who were seated close to us on the train our trip was considerably tame compared to those who tried to make it the day before. The one hour trip they where expecting took over 5 hours and involved burning tree stump road blocks and hoards of aggitated people. Not that the youngsters of the family took much notice as they´d slept through the whole thing, and they were more excited about telling us they wanted to grow up to be a monkey.
So after a beautiful train journey through the steep, forest encrouched valley that lead to Aguas Calientes we boarded a bus that wound its way up the numerous switch backs that took us to the mysterious Machu Picchu!!!. Still being very early we made our way through the theme park like gates showing passports and entry tickets to the magnificent site of a near deserted, morning lit ancient city that was even more impressive then the hundreds of postcards or any of the hundreds of photos we then took of the place.
After a short wait for our dirty, smelly, relieved and hopefully very proud friends as they made their way don from the Sun Gate we rewarded them with chocolate and congratulations and we started our tour through the ruins.
As spectacular as they were up close, the dissapointment of not being able to do the Inca trail still weighd heavily on Robyn, and the thought of not viewing the great complex from the Sun Gate (or Intipunku),(between half and one hours hike up hill, with an unknown numbers of steps) was too disturbing, so with 2 hours to play with we set off up the stone path to get our photograph. The altitude, the sun, and the task at hand was certainely taxing (with Robyn puffing the whole way up!) but we caught glimpses of the gate which spurred us on and with plenty of time to take in the magnificent view we made it to the Sun Gate. To be honest, the view of the ancient Incan city was better from just 10 minutes up the trail, but the accomplishment of making it after watching all our friends head off for the real thing was what it was all about.
As tired as everybody was from their massive feat, not many of us slept on the journey home. Instead we traded stories of triumph, sickness, reward, poor hygiene, shopping bargains, and the promise of a warm comfy bed. Well done all those triumphant trekkers! We´ll know your accomplishment for ourselves one day (hopefully).

The next day in Cuzco didn´t bring much activity for those who were recovering from the trail, but Rob and I set off on the Sacred Valley tour which showed us more of the beautiful surrounding area and still impressive ruins. The tour couldn´t help but arouse a sense of dissapointment in me in relation to how little effort we as a ¨civilisation¨ put into building a sustainable existence, even with all the technology we have at our finger tips. The forethought and hard work that this group of people put into building thier civilisation over 500 hundred years ago, I believe, puts us to shame.