Cusco, land of the Incans and "Massage?"

Positively every traveler who had already been had raved to us about how fantastic Cusco would be. After three weeks of traveling throughout the other hubs of Peru, Katrina and I had found some places of interest, mostly historic or geographical; a place just here or there, but not an entire city. So, I was excited to come across this place that was supposed to be amazing. I had this fantastic blue paper map that my dear friend Melodee from the farm, who had lived there previously, had written all over. She told me exactly where all of the best bars would be, the best vegetarian restaurants, clothing shops, hostels, you name it. We were set to go.

When we arrived, it was rather dark, and we’d pulled into a part of town that was less than lovely, so immediately we started to worry that our expectations had been set too high. Yet after settling into our hostel and starting to make it down to dinner, we started to see the character. There were cobblestone streets, which are quite common in different cities in Peru, and bits of architecture popped out to us. I have to say, nothing screams character like a one-way road with less than two feet of sidewalk that you HAVE to walk down to get to where you’re going. Now, this particular night, I wasn’t sure how close the cars could get, until a van’s collapsible mirror—thank God, smacked right into my right breast. It was as if life had shouted, “Welcome to Cusco! Look alive!”

Yet as we settled into dinner and I had the first fantastic burrito in weeks at a very chic tourist restaurant off of the main plaza, I was relieved to nearly be over my illness in a city that has fantastic cuisine. Now, because I am still vegetarian at this point, I couldn’t have any of the Peruvian “tipical food” that they have because this includes lomo saltado, a beef and rice dish, or the peppers that are stuffed with beef and potatoes. Now, in addition to this, they also have the fun dishes for tourists to try: alpaca, which they cook up like a steak, and guinea pig, or cuy, as they call it, which they grill up whole. You can still see this thing’s teeth apparently. I didn’t order it. It did not receive rave enough reviews from people for me to break the vegetarianism at this point. I was also still trying to get over my last bits of food poisoning. After the antibiotics had screwed my digestion up but killed the bacteria, I bought these yogurt probiotic drinks that truly seemed to help my stomach. And finally after a few days of this and two days before I had to start the Inca Trail, all had returned to normal.

Now as we made our way through the city, we would follow the magical map that led us to new exciting locations. In Cusco, the restaurants were positively posh at times, there were vegetarian options, and the people were friendly. Granted, this place is crawling with tourists. I’m talking Disneyland for Peruvian tourism. The natives literally pounce on the tourists here and will ask you at least five to ten times a day, if not more, if you would like to buy a water color postcard or painting, photos with a llama, or need a pedicure or massage. Not to mention the abundance of tours they offer there. There are about a dozen different archaeological sites to see around the area, not to mention water rafting, skydiving, bungee jumping, paragliding, blah blah blah. Apparently people who go to visit South America are considered the adventurous type. The point is that even though it’s the most annoying place in Peru for tourist bombardment, it still has really good vibes—also like Disneyland.

So finally, after our first couple of days exploring, we observed the following: Cusco was founded over and around Incan sites, which include all that incredibly close-cut stonework you’ve seen on the History channel that boggles the mind. Next, they have their own flag—it’s a rainbow, and when Katrina and I first walked into the main plaza, there was a parade going on and a rainbow flag waving in the air. I’m not going to lie, of course we got very excited and started looking for our gays and friendly neighborhood transvestites because in America—this means it’s Gay Pride! Alas, we realized that it was not gay pride when people were parading around for business or something terrible to parade around about… we never completely understood some of the parades.

Cusco really has a fantastic location that, although is cold quite often, is so beautiful and close to the clouds and you can see why the whole area was and is so sacred to the people. There’s a deep-seated culture and history in the mountains and many of the people’s ancestry comes from the indigenous peoples and the Incans, so the culture is still personal and very obvious and preserved. While in Cusco, we went exploring to the nearby ruins called Sacsayhuaman and went horseback riding in the hills and we went white water rafting in the Urubamba River which leads into the Amazon. Also, we went to a fantastic folk show called Kusikay after meeting the drunk/juggler in a vegetarian restaurant the day before. Now this show included dance and acrobatics and interaction with the audience and highlighted how Cusco and Peru had evolved over the past several hundred years with the Incans, and then the coming of the Spanish, and how this changed politics and trade and all of these topics, but all while making you laugh. I got to go on stage and be a bull that has a very sexy moo and kills the matador while he’s thinking he’s won. I was quite good.

Next, I will delve into the Inca Trail, which allowed me to connect to nature and my mind, “Why am I doing this?” body, “Ow…keep breathing, ow…” and spirit, “God help me.”