Cuzco, Are You Stonewalling Me?

Cuzco: Home of the Inca, Capital of the Empire, Refuge of the Gringo

Despite my previous assertions that I would never travel on an overnight bus again, I cut a deal with the Devil at Ciel Bus Company (fine, ratbastard folks) and found myself on the 8.30pm run from Arequipa to Cuzco. It was another rough, swerveball ride through high altitude, frost, and rioting llamas. Thus the solemn oath was broken, the nose was frozen, the chin dribbled upon, and the stomach assauted by some truly horrific syrup-like coca tea to help with the seeekness amigo. The situation was further aggravated by the old Aztec retribution for previous gringo sins. Rosio accompanied us to the bus station with her boyfriend Paul (nice guy, perfectly affable, want to kill him). They gave us little bags of toffees, and Rosio began to cry. We had all become friends over the previous week, and were sorry to see her go.

At the other end of the Rope of Filth, as the road was christened in my mind, we met the omnipresent omnipotent Marlon, the new player in the Peruvian tour operator oligarchy, and Rosio´s brother. “Hola amigos! I´m Marlon!”, firm handshake, award winning smile. We checked into Marlon´s House, having gotten there in Marlon´s Taxi, probably operated by Marlon´s Cousin and fell into Marlon´s Beds and fell into a deep, deep Marlon Sleep. The hostel is nice, a 16th Century Spanish Colonial building with a central colonnaded courtyard. It´s a little cold, adorned with beautiful fluorescent chandeliers, and has “hot water all day!” if you are willing to risk electrocution standing under the semi-improvised electric shower. Marlon is a genuinely nice guy, though, and we feel a strange little obligation to stay. If our requests of the best room in the hostel, with 24 hour free room service, and a thermal spring in the en suite are granted, we may consider staying. Otherwise, it could be adios amigo. Alternatively, Marlon could find out about our not entirely honourable intentions towards his sisters and it would be get the fuck out of Marlon´s house, amigos. We shall see how this goes.

After the check-in rigmarole, we went downtown to eat lunch in a dive-restaurant affair with a bored waiter, chainsmoking chef and a table of three Yanks loudly yammering about how they had “done” Central America “in like, fucking three weeks, dude”. One hour, some Campbell´s condensed and a forgettable bolognase later, Mark and Dave had a sudden urge to buy middle-aged wool jumpers. Soon they were positively ejaculating over alpaca knitwear with llama designs featuring heavily. Mark bought a nice 55 year old casual jumper, Dave following suit. I bought a scarf and we all received complementary alpaca finger puppets, which came in useful while warding off evil spirits (street vendors); “Knitted hats, amigos? One sol!” “No thanks. Fingers puppets?”. In fairness, the guys were careful not to overdo it, with some justification. While in Arequipa I saw a gringo bedecked in smiling llamas from head to toe. The locals (jeans, duffels coats) were corpsing with laughter.

I like it here. The architecture is Inca and Colonial, the latter often built over the former. It is colonnaded in the centre, and has remnants of the old citadel more peripherally, comprising narrow streets and fabulous masonry, the like of which I have never encountered. Incredibly, the entire civilization was governed from here by the Inca and his four advisors, one for each province; north, south, east and west. The street plan, especially north of the Plaza de Armes is overwhelmingly quechua, narrow and stepped. We visited the Temple of the Sun God (Qorikancha) on top of which is built the Convento de Santo Domingo. I was an Inca temple complex which was partially destroyed by the marauding Spanish, searching for legendary, nonexistent, gold within the temple walls. A large portion of the complex was uncovered in the 1950s, as a consequence of a major earthquake; the Spanish architecture crumbled and the Inca dry stone masonry stood, shatterproof and resolute. Again the architecture was astounding, perfect symmetry, perfect inclines, a beautiful simplicity. No mortar was used. Every thing they built was dry stone constructed on the interlocking male/female principle. The masonry and skill involved in this single union is extraordinary, but when one extrapolated it to walls, temples an cities, the achievement becomes monumental. As Dave inscribed in the comments book at the end of the tour

“Those Incas sure had stones”

This has whetted my appetite for Macchu Picchu, a place I first learned about while reading the Childcraft at the age of six. I´ve spent 18 years wondering what it is like; now I can see the fascination is well founded, and the excitement grows still further in the knowledge that the ruins at Sacchsaywamman and Choquequirao are as impressive and less populated. A putative trek to the latter may prove the highlight of the journey thus far.

I am a child again!

The Level Of Discourse

We are now officially students of the San Blas Language School. The course we have selected is custom designed for travellers who are looking for basic conversational skills and are not hugely keen to delve into Marquez, Neruda et al. We had our first class today and I am now quite confident of manoeuvring my way in and out of a zoo without much difficulty. I can also count to ten, and order a cup of tea, with or without milk. Dave suffered a little; when asked what age had was, he replied “tengo 26 anos” which literally translates at “I have 26 assholes”. That squiggly thing sitting on the occasional n can be mightily important (ñ).

Mark shall write a further review of these classes at a future point. He has been paying especially close attention to our teacher, Carla.

Current Reading

It´s cliché city at the moment. Dave is reading Marquez, Mark is mining On The Road, and I am trying to find my path in life with The Alchemist by Paolo Coehlo. Coehlo seems to be a bit of a shitemonger. I recall watching a documentary about him on TG4 where he was trying to find a seer in Connemara. He wandered around for a while before encountering a sheep, who looked at Coehlo, then glanced left. The bold Paolo went left, and found a bicycle repair shop. Follow the omens, my arse.

Last But Not Least

On careful review of our photographs from the trek, there is an alpaca, or small llama, in the Colca Canyon in Peru which looks exactly like Conor Lynam.

Next time on Hefty Women…

“No gracias señor” becomes an increasingly ineffective way to tell street vendors to fuck off…

The Aussies reappear, with vegemite!

Dave and Mark compare thermal underwear…

Marlon finds out…

All this and more on Hefty Women, unjustly ridiculing Peruvian culture, since 2006