Getting ripped off in Cusco

View of Cuzco

Well we had a quick lunch stop in Lima on our way to Cusco yesterday. Where we literally had to walk out of the airport and then back in again to check our bags in. We also discovered the most you can get out at an atm here is 1500 soles which is not much money. No one tells you that side of things. If we had known, we would have got out a lot of US dollars before leaving Ecuador and just exchanged it here.

Plaza Del Armas

When we got to Cusco the first thing that sprung to mind was brown. In Ecuador a lot of the houses are painted different colours. Here they tend to have brown tile rooves with white walls. That against the bare brown hills is, well, brown. But actually it is quite nice. We like it. Up close it has more charm to it and it looks quite pretty set against the hills. It's also a nice change from Quito, because Quito was so big.
We didn't do much last night, I bought a really nice scarf for about 6US and we mainly just walked around fending off people offering massages, restaurants or alpaca products.
We had guinea pig tonight. It wasn't terribly exciting. Honestly, the meat itself tastes like nothing. Like even more like nothing than chicken. It's also a lot of effort to get that tiny bit of meat off all the little bones, and it's a bit expensive. Considering we could have had a huge barbecue of other assorted meats for the same price. Still it is a must try when you're in Peru, and it looked a whole lot better than the mummified ones we saw in Ecuador that appeared to have been barbecuing all day.

Tambomachay

This morning we got up early to try and get some money out from an actual bank. No luck, it was just declined. We are probably just going to have to get out smaller amounts from the atm and take the fees that come with it.
I really wanted to visit some ruins in the area but I wasn't keen on a bus tour of the sacred valley (yuck, tourists). I came across this site and it was really helpful in making me feel confident to walk the 8kms from Tambomachay to Cuzco. The site also has helpful information on multi day walks around Cuzco. First we had to buy a tourist ticket, it lets you into all of the ruin sites in the Cusco area. We later discovered you can buy the exact same thing from some of the sites. The plan was to take a taxi to the bus stop and get a bus to Tambomachay and walk back, stopping at the 4 other ruin sites on the way. However, the taxi driver was not wearing his glasses and just started taking us to Pisac. When I corrected him and he took us to the right place he then horribly ripped us off because he had taken us out of town and back... so yeah, don't do that. The buses are actually mini-van things and you get on and wait until it fills up before it will leave. It was only after we had sat on the bus for 40minutes that I thought I would check if we had our tourist tickets. I found that, no I did not have them and promptly jammed my finger in a latch on my bag and made it bleed. Obviously we got off the bus, and I refused to get in a taxi to go back to the hostel because I was sulking and we had just got ripped off horrendously. So we walked, and it turned out to only be about a 15min walk. Not idea why the lady at the hostel told us to take a taxi because it was too far to walk. After I had finished my sulk and self hatred session, we found our tourist tickets and I agreed to getting a taxi to take us to the ruins instead of wasting so much time waiting for a bus to fill before it left, again. The taxi to Tambomachay was only 25 soles. Which rubbed more salt in our ripped off wounds because the other taxi had charged us 20 to the bus stop... needless to say our conversation for the next half hour mainly consisted of making up names for that taxi driver.

Tambomachay

So the ruins we visted in order were Tambomachay, Pucapucara, Q'enqo and Saqsayhuman (sexy-woman as all tourists call it). We missed one called Cusilluchayoc. We did pass a sign for it but it looked very much just like a horse track. I suspect it is a very small ruin. It's not even on the tourist ticket, so there mustn't be anyone there checking your ticket. The ticket is a bit stupid. It's not cheep, it only lasts 10days and you can only go to each site once.

Pucapucara

Q'enqo

Saqsayhuman

Saqsayhuman

I read up a fair bit on the walk on the net. Let me just say, it's perfectly safe, you are walking on the road most of the time and there's a lot of people walking and a lot of cars (that won't hit you, they tended to drive on the other side of the road as they pass you). There were a lot of buses and taxis going past and stopping at ruins, so I think it would be easy to get a lift to Cuzco if you got over it. There are plenty of places to eat on the way too. It's also mostly downhill, just a little uphill at the start. Between Saqsayhuman and Cusco you get to walk on a cobbled path that cars don't use. It's a great walk and definitely doable in a morning or afternoon. You get some great views of Cusco from Q'enqo. Saqsayhuman is quite a big ruin,  whereas the others are quite small. If you wanted to have a quick trip you could easily walk to Saqsayhuman and wander around there and walk back to Cuzco, because it is basically on the edge of the city.

Here's hoping tomorrow runs smoother!