The city of Cusco was once the Inca capital – they called it the Belly Button of the World. It was here the Inca were first invaded by the Chanka people where the current Inca (King) fled in fear his small fledging nation would be hopelessly defeated. His son, Pachacutec, believed otherwise and rallied the people to a victorious battle against their invaders. This was to be the first taste of many battles, and Pachacutec embarked on a spree of conquest throughout the region rapidly expanding the Inca empire. And expansion was the name of game with each successive King and within the short period of only a few centuries the Inca had dominated what is now Peru, Ecuador and Chile. That all changed with the arrival of the Spanish.
Cusco itself is a wonderful colonial city, filled with cobbled roads and what seems to be a festival every few days. When the Spanish established Lima as the capital,
Cusco became a footnote in history, that is until the rediscovery of Machu Picchu, launching it into the most tourist heavy city in Peru, if not all of South America.
Being there in mid April meant I was out of the tourist season. It’s June/July when the tourist hoards descend and there’s a party every night in the plaza. Still the
splattering of tourists were more than noticeable, however it wasn’t the tourists that were irritating – sit down for more than five minutes in the Plaza de Armas and you’ll be offered paintings, jewellery, alpaca clothing and drugs. Most of time they’ll leave when you tell them firmly you’re in interested, although on a couple of occasions they don’t let up and simply just ask you for money, repeating over and over how hungry they are they just want to be a MacDonalds burger for lunch.
Once you get past the annoying barrage of touts and expensive restaurants, Cusco still has its charms. The Santa Domingo Church is interesting. Built on the remains of the Inca temple Qorikancha, their parts of the Inca ruins have been restored and they were once completely covered in gold plate. The gold was melted down and looted in the Spanish invasion, most of used for the ransom of Atahualpa when he was captured in Cajamarca (and killed anyway).
Of course the main reason you come to Cusco isn’t to hang around the city, but to head to the incredible Inca ruins of Machu Picchu. There are three ways of reaching the ruins. One is to follow one of the many trails leading up to them, the most famous being the 3 days trek named the Inca Trail. Of all the people I’ve meet in South America so far not one wanted to do the trail – firstly you need to
book at least 6 months in advance, and secondly it’s expensive and you do better cheaper treks elsewhere in Peru, notably Huaraz. Still fly by night tourists flock
to it, pay out their wads of cash and fly back home once they’re done proclaiming loudly they completed the Inca Trail.
The second way to arrive at the ruins is a convoluted bus journey to several small
villages along the way and take the train at the very last leg. This is the cheapest option, and I did meet one Argentinian couple that did it this way, but it takes at least 2 days to get they and a lot of early morning mini bus rides. And lastly there is the train, something which I was dreading the price of after hearing rumours of several hundred dollars. That used to be the case when PeruRail were the only
operators, but now with 2 competitors the prices have dropped. Still ridiculously expensive having to shell out $50+ each way for a 3 hour train ride!
And they get you again with the overcharging when you reach Aguas Calientes. This town is the final stop on the train ride, and the last town until you reach Machu Picchu. Just to remind you to buy souvenirs, the walk from the train exit to
where the buses are is through a market, you literally walk past stalls of trinkets just get out of the train station! From here you can either catch the bus up to the ruins or walk. Just to insult you some more, the 20 minute bus ride is $9 each way.
I took the bus ride up to scope out whether the walk back down was worth it. In my opinion it’s not, after being through Northern Peru the path to Machu Picchu is pretty boring, so I paid for the bus ride back too. That’s not to say it’s not a scenic path up, and I totally understand why people would be so enamoured by it if they have never seen more of Peru, there was even one American guy on the bus ride up freaking out, repeatedly saying “Jesus Christ, oh my god, Jesus Christ”
with each turn upwards. At first I was getting annoyed by him, but after the hundredth time it actually became funny. I even bumped into him at the ruins and asked what he thought – in his own words “JESUS CHRIST!!”.
Even the lead up to Machu Picchu is spectacular. From above the walls of the city appear and you are captivated at what lies ahead. With it not being tourist season
there wasn’t much of a crowd at all, so off the bus and through the gates I went and walked into the mountain top fortress. No one is still yet really sure what the purpose of Machu Picchu was, originally thought to have been a retreat for the king and the elite. With the discoveries of several roads leading to the site over the mountains it is now been theorised the city was a trade centre. One fact remains that is was never mentioned in the Spanish chronicles, so we do not know whether it had already been abandoned at the time of the conquest or just kept hidden.
Machu Picchu deserves all the praise it receives; it’s a marvel of ancient grandeur sitting on top of a mountain overlooking the valleys below. Most of it has been
restored, unfortunately losing the incredible Inca masonry where precision cut bricks are basically glued together as opposed to the western method of using
mortar. You look around this place and try and picture in the minds eye what it would have been like 600 years ago, were people sitting on the grass terraces
taking in the incredible view just like people were doing now? It’s hard to imagine the Inca people weren’t just as impressed with Machu Picchu as we are today.
The site is huge, and it took me a good two hours to walk all around it. And that only involved one rest stop to stare out over the valley. I could have parked myself on one of the terraces and just chilled out for at least an hour, but the light patter of rain descended and I decided to make my way back to Aguas Calientes for lunch. Out of the 5 days I spent in Cusco it only poured down with rain once, every other day was sunny or the rain would only last 5 minutes. After an overpriced pizza it was time to catch my train back to Cusco, which on the ride
I had a really nice conversation with an American school teacher and her hot daughter.
Alas the daughter and her mother flew out the next morning – bloody fly by night tourists!