Cusco

Today was a day of rest before the hardcore climbing begins. We got up at 8 a.m., possibly the latest that we have woken up this entire trip. We spent the early morning moving hostels, and then went to visit Qorykancha, the former Inca sun temple, upon which a Spanish convent had been built. Supposedly, the top two feet of the walls of Qorykancha used to be lined with gold leaf, and the major treasures of the Incas were stored within this temple. We shopped around for some arts and crafts, and Everett, as usual, loved the attention of being solicited by everyone.

We visited the largest flea market that I have ever encountered, which was housed under a gigantic corrogated steel roof. They sold everything under the sun barring real estate and furniture, including all sorts of fruits, vegetables, meats, clothes, toiletries, trinkets, and prepared foods. Evan and I tried some chicha out of a pretty sketchy looking bucket, and the three of us shared a blender full of especial fruit drink, made fresh for us. In addition to five or six fruits, some of which we had never seen or tasted before, the drink included Cusqueña malta, milk, egg, honey, molasses, and probably a few other ingredients. It tasted like a smoothie-shake-beer, very filling. We had a lunch of chicken noodle soup, with boiled chicken leg, vegetables, and salsa picante. Somehow, Everett and Evan were not hungry and shared one of these bowls, whereas I not only ate my own bowl, but half of their chicken as well.

After lunch, we perused the Catedral de Cusco, which is the first cathedral built in the Americas. It is really three churches in one, and had been under constant construction until the late 1990s. I have never seen such a staggering amount of gold and silver shaped into religious lore, and the cathedral was filled with impressive facades, paintings, and figurines. We climbed into the crypts to see where some of the Archbishops had been buried.

We sat for some time in the Plaza de Armas, taking in the beautiful view of the plaza and the surrounding hills of houses, and were accosted by a variety of locals trying to sell us paintings, intricately carved gourds, headwear... in the end, each of us bought 1 or 2 paintings. There was a little girl, around 8 years old, that was peddling little finger puppets made out of yarn, and I refused her in the early afternoon, even though I thought her puppet of a puma with its own puma hand puppet was adorable. Her friend asked her how many she had sold, and she said, ¨nada,¨and then her friend pointed her finger at me and said ¨tu asesinado.¨However, when I saw that the little girl was still hustling on the street at dinnertime, I felt terribly for her, and bought the little puma puppet for S/1. In the late afternoon, we had coffee and deserts overlooking Plaza de Armas. Evan and I ventured into Catedral de las Compañias (bells) and climbed to the high second floor, where we had a perfect view of Plaza de Armas and the surrounding countryside. We even climbed up a barred staircase into the attic right below the bells, which had been poorly maintained, and luckily none of us fell through the old wood.

Back in our hostel, we packed for our epic journey tomorrow, trying to unload as much unnecessary material as possible so as to lighten our loads. I felt like I was in a swashbuckling movie, where we need to dump as much junk from our ship as possible so as not to be caught by pirates. Hopefully, I have gotten my pack to between 15-20 lbs.

We met up with Tracey and Megan from sandboarding Cerro Blanco for dinner.. we had tried to meet up by email, but actually met up by chance in the Plaza. After playing the restaurant hustlers on the street against each other, we ended up having dinner at the same place as last night, except this time with a free salad bar and free pisco sour. Nothing fancy for dinner tonight - spaghetti bolognase to carboload for the impending hike tomorrow. Afterwards, the two Es and I went to Paddy´s, purportedly the world´s highest elevation owned Irish pub at 11,156 ft., where we each had a Guiness.

Tomorrow, we have breakfast at 4:50 a.m. in the hostel, then at 5:20, we are being picked up by Peru Treks by bus. We will bus for 2 or 3 hours before a stop for breakfast, and a chance to buy water and snacks. At around 10, we will start the hike, with a total of 12k for the first day (supposedly, around 5 hours of hiking). This is my last post before we return very late Saturday night, and I promise I will have a lot of material to post - I will write with old fashioned pen and paper while we are trekking.