Since My last post myself and john have been getting to know Cuzco, an awesome city filled with beautiful buildings and a lot of history. The longest inhabited city in the whole of Peru it was initially used by the Incas until the invasion of the Spanish. Last week I truly put on my tourist shoe in Peru, myself and john visited several museums providing history of the Incas and the history of Cuzco. They were interesting, with mummy displays, scale models of Inca sites including Machupichu and saqusaywaman and the usual collection of metalwork’s and textiles.
The mentioned Saquasaywoman is an Incan fortress located on the outskirts of Cuzco. This provided a great day out with a walk through the city and then up its slopes to the site and then the day spent exploring the routines. It was quite strange to see such a large site so close to the city after the 4 days it took to get to the remote machupichu, however I wasn’t complaining as the fortress being on top of a hill there was great views of the city and several nice view points on the route around the site. The routines called saquasywoman, or as the gringos know it "sexywoman" was great to walk around as the weather was nice and having visited the Inca museum the previous day I was able to appreciate the history attached with the fortress.
Another site overlooking the city that I visited was "christo" like Christ the redeemer looking over rio but smaller. I have wanted to go up and see it since arrival to Cuzco as at night time it is fully illuminated up on the hill top looking over Cuzco. It was quite a climb up to the Jesus taking us through caves that me being an adrenaline junky was tempted to do abit of free style rock climbing, quite fun, especially when the caves were pitch black. My good deed for the day was when myself and john were climbing the hill we came across a n elderly man in need of help, he was trying to push his drink stall up the hill. He explained he had broken his legs when he was younger and so needed our help. We pushed it up, getting to the top of Christ completely satterd. The views from Christ was amazing, to the back of us we can see saquasywoman o our front Cuzco, Viva el Peru in the distance carved into the hill side.
As mentioned the opportunity to get a job working as bar staff arise, this is the perfect opportunity to try and balance out my budget deficit arising from the overpriced nature of south amerce so far, as well as being valuable experience. The bar we were supposed to be working in strung us along for a weekend only to tell us he had given away the jobs, Great guy. Never the less barmen are sought after all over the city and so I have secured a position at a hostel called "the point", starting tomorrow. The job doesn’t provide a wage however free accommodation, dinner and discount on anything else in the hostel is the norm. so starting tomorrow ile have the days to explore more of Cuzco and some of the evenings making drinks, should be interesting as the bar manger seems like a cool guy.
The splitting up of the Gvi group was sad as myself and john made some great friends so it was great to be able to meet back up with some of the other volunteers, Claire returning from nazca and Colca. I hope to also meet back up with Sandeep who is also in Cuzco at the moment on returning from machupichu. Similarly the other day when exploring the city with john it was great to spot 2 familiar faces, Olivia and Emma from the teaching group of gvi volunteers on their way to their next gvi project. it always amazes me when I run into people I have met along my travels. The food in Cuzco has been great, with a range of different restaurants from local small eateries to large restaurants. One place ive been meaning to mention is un nammed however it has been a great regular eating hole for myself and john during our time in Cuzco. A tiny restaurant with about 4 tables’s serving traditional Peruvian food every day of the week for a very reasonable price of 5 soles for a soup, main dish (consisting of meat cooked in various ways, rice and veg) as well as a drink. Now this in relation to other restaurants is about a quarter of the price in any other place we have eaten and so a great find. The woman cooking our food has come to know me and john as the "amigos” a thoroughly lovely woman, I shall give her a good tip the last time we leave as i don’t understand how she is providing such good food so cheaply! Other places to mention would be the restaurant called Kormasutra, an Indian restaurant with great interior, music and amazing food. Considering that Claire was only back in Cuzco for the weekend we decided to check out a cafe called jacks, the food was pretty western however it was a nice treat after cooking for myself for the past week. Apple and cinnamon porridge, chunky chips and 2 mojitos at 9.30 in the evening, the waitress must have thought I was a right weirdo. For the evening relaxing on beanbags enjoying happy hour was pretty chilled.
Now for the past few days there has been a large festival going on in Cuzco, Hundreds of children from 6 to 18 dressed in traditional clothing dancing in formation with sticks for the boys and feather things for the girls, this lasted 3 days and nights. This was great to watch in both the daytime and evening as the colors of their uniforms was great in the sun and the misty lighting of the main square at night gave the dancing an eerie feel to it. This has been great however the dancing starts from 5 everyday, constant drumming has become my wake up call.
I am excited to be starting as a barman tomorrow and hope to enjoy more that Cuzco has to offer in the coming week.
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