We got into Cusco 15 minutes early at around 4:45am, amazingly, despite having multiple delays that included getting pulled over and raided by the authorities (See It’s Not All Fun and Games). We weren’t quite clear that we had reached our final destination, since many locals continued to snooze and the bus was still running.

We decided to ask someone and learned that we had in fact arrived. I nearly bowled over several sleepy Bolivian woman slowly wrapping up their multitude of items in blankets as I rushed out to claim our (please, God, let them still be there) bags. After praising Jesus, I grabbed our things and waited for Beth to de-bus while I watched a drunken brawl that looked sort of like a frat hazing taking place across the street.

We jumped in a taxi and were dropped off sort of near our hostel in the main square. We looked around and were shocked to hear loud music thumping away and drunken foreigners stumbling down the street on a still-in-progress pub crawl. It was 5am.

We walked up a half block, and found our Hostel, Suica I without incident. We knocked on the door, no answer. Rang the doorbell. No answer. Knocked louder. No answer. A few of the one thousand policemen patrolling the streets to protect tourists walked by and struck up a conversation with us while banging furiously on the door.  After establishing where we were from, where we were going, and how long we’d be in Cusco, someone finally answered the door rubbing their eyes.

We were let in and into our room, where we immediately let out a sigh or relief, said “We Made It!” in unison, and tumbled into bed where we remained until 11am.

We woke up and ate the included breakfast of pita-like-bread-things, jam, butter, and tea before setting off to buy our train tickets up to Machu Picchu. (Between Beth´s bad knee, my bourgeoning illness, our limited time, and our lack of desire to hike in altitude, we decided to punk out on the big but-everybody´s-doing-it 4 day Inca Trail hike, and instead take the train.) When we got to the train station, we discovered that it closed on Saturdays at 11am, and that we’d need to return the next day (at 7am sharp! they said) to buy tickets. We went back to our place and I crawled back into bed.

This was Day Four of a stomach issue I was having that was not showing any signs of improvement. I had been eating only rice and potatoes since I had begun feeling ill in Bolivia, but despite these binding dishes, things only seemed to be getting worse. It was in the middle of Beth pleading with me to take antibiotics that there was a light rapping at the door. “Who is that rap tap tapping at my chamber door?”

It was two women at the hotel who had come in a unified force to demand that we pay the previous night’s rent. Beth was explaining that we had arrived at 5am that morning, not the night before, but they were insisting that we pay. After shouting “no” from the bed several times in an effort to end the discussion, I dragged my sick and cranky self to the chamber door to explain myself further.

We had called and made a reservation from Bolivia, knowing that we were coming to Cusco during the infamous high season. I had explicitly asked if we could arrive at 5am and been told “si, no problema”. I conveyed this, but there was no moving them. I added that the only reason we had come on the 5am bus was to save money on a hotel room, since there was an option to take one that got in at 10pm the previous night. They then said that you must come after 5am, not 5am on the dot to not pay for the previous night.

In an unusual moment of stubbornness, I was having none of this. After one of the women admitted that she was the one I had spoken with on the phone, I began directing my (newly acquired past tense) statements at her… “Why didn’t YOU tell us this”, “If YOU had told me this, we would have waited in the bus station”, “If YOU had told me this, we would have taken the other bus”. They finally relented, and I went back to bed and tried to sleep off my illness while Beth played good cop and thanked them with a big, sweet, innocent smile.

We went out in search of food after a short nap and sat overlooking the adorable Plaza de Armas, Cusco’s main square. I choked down some rice and sipped water while Beth enjoyed Aji de Gallina, a delicious chicken curry dish. We walked around a bit to check out the shopping scene before I needed to head back to bed. I had another delectable meal of dry white rice and Beth had a so-so burrito for dinner, and we turned in early just as everyone else headed out for a night on the town.

The following morning, we dragged ourselves out of bed at 6:45 to go buy tickets for Machu Picchu. Today, my illness was in full swing, and I was sending Beth gagging from our windowless room with my emissions. At the train station I went flying into the bathroom for an emergency pit stop and returned burping up rotten egg smelling burps. Beth was now adamant that I take antibiotics, but I was still nervous about jumping the gun. “I thought you weren’t supposed to take antibiotics on a whim,” I argued.

“This is not a whim!” she replied, flailing her arms in exasperation. “You’re in a third world country and you’ve been shitting your brains out for 5 days!”

I wanted to consult my well-traveled doctor cousin, Suzanne, or our wonderful NYC doctor, Dr. Rein, but knew that we were starting to reach a critical juncture and that waiting for a reply might be… painful (perhaps more so for Beth). As we were waiting in line for our tickets, I took out my trusty notebook and began scribbling questions down for Beth to research on WebMD.

Our number was finally called and we went up to buy our tickets. They could get us up to Machu Picchu the next day but they couldn’t get us back. We settled for the following day and bought our tickets.

I went back for another nap and Beth left to do her research. She returned with a plethora of information that all leaned toward me taking the antibiotics, including a few factoids that got my hypochondriac blood pumping. I finally broke down and took the Cipro.

The nausea magically died down not long afterwards and after an hour or two we went out in search of lunch. We happened upon a cute place with a balcony overlooking the square that was to become our favorite, Norton Rat’s. Beth had read in her research that I could have boiled chicken, so I ordered a Pechuga de Pollo sandwich.  After 5 days of rice and potatoes, this tasted like the most delicious thing I had ever put in my mouth. I sat back, completely satisfied and feeling 100 times better after our meal. “I feel like someone waved a magic wand.”

“Yes,” Beth said. “Cipro waved a magic wand.”

We spent the next day and a half enjoying the city, shopping, doing internet, and relaxing. The night before we were leaving for our big trip, we found a cute cafe/restaurant off the square where we broke out our magnetic backgammon and played a few games. 

After dinner (potatoes! woo-hoo!), we were sipping tea as a horrible crashing sound began to peel through the restaurant. After a continued several seconds of breaking glass, it dawned on me that this was not a waitress dropping a platter but that something more sinister was in progress. I watched Beth’s eyes get larger and larger as she looked over my shoulder and I jumped up and turned around to see for myself.

Just then, the shattering finally ceased and everyone was on their feet looking toward the origin of the noise. Someone had thrown something through a full floor to ceiling glass door and all the shattered pieces were now on the floor.

“We need to go,” I said as I started throwing together the pieces of the backgammon game. I was focused on getting away before there was another “attack”, but Beth started checking the scene outside to see if there was some sort of riot starting. The wait staff ran outside to find the culprit and we saw them running up and down the street in vain. Beth decided the coast was clear and we paid and left, never learning what happened… though some other girls in the restaurant said that they think it was some girl having a fight with her boyfriend. Who knows. I didn´t want to hang around doing detective work.

The next morning we took the train up to Machu Picchu. We selected the “Backpackers” train, and so we were appropriately seated facing two other backpackers. One was named Evan, who we chatted with for a while, and the other was an American girl so intent on doing her Sudoku that we never learned her name. The ride up was gorgeous. We passed by soaring mountains with some of the sheerest faces I’ve ever seen, vast fields, freshly plowed farms, and a big rocky, mountain river that we followed the whole way up.

We arrived at Agua Calientes, a cute little town at the base of the mountain, and went in search of entrance tickets for Machu Picchu (which was a small pain). We walked down the main street, filled with touristy shops, pizza places, nice restaurants, and bars, and wondered why the Lonely Planet didn’t state more enthusiastically that this was a fine place to spend a night.

We took a bus up to the top and grabbed lunch before setting off. We entered the gates, which were plastered with “Vote for Machu Picchu for the New 7 Wonders of the World” fliers, and wandered into the site. We found ourselves walking on enormous steps with bright green grass on their massive platforms that served as walkways.

We began wandering around the ruins, charting our course using a map. We decided to take the easy trail, but by the end of the day we had traversed the whole thing anyway.

We first went around to one side where we got a view of the valleys and rivers hundreds of feet below us. We sat there for a while and enjoyed the breeze and the shockingly peaceful vibe (no squabbling tourists). We then climbed up to the squabbling tourists and shrieking tour guides to eavesdrop about how the place was constructed.

Between reading our book and catching pieces of tour guides’ rants we learned that the Incas were experts at building these massive structures by carving the rocks so perfectly that they fit together without mortar. The more amazing thing was that they somehow moved all these pieces into place without the benefit of wheels (they reinvented the way buildings were constructed, but I guess the wheel was a bit out of reach).

We walked around looking at the hundreds of houses, stones all still perfectly intact and missing their thatched roofs. We noticed that all of them had prime views out of their valley facing windows.

We walked down to a grassy field and started wondering where that famous view of the ruins was. We spotted a big structure high on a hill and decided we’d walk up to it to see what sort of view we’d find. After a few wrong turns, we finally made our way there and found our view (see first picture). Huayna Picchu mountain was in the distance and all the ruins below us. We sat on a grassy patch for a while and just looked.

We left begrudgingly because we had to catch a bus down and to our train. We made the bus just in time and began our descent down a long and winding road down to the train station and Agua Calientes. Just as we were leaving, a little 10-year old boy waved and started running down a path and out of sight. We wound around a curve and there he was, in the middle of the road waving. He had beat us.

We passed him and off he went, down a dirt path again. We wound the next corner, and there he was, waving in the road. This happened again and again all the way down the mountain. We got to the base, and he was there waiting for us. Of course, he got on the bus asking for money and rode into town, but everyone, including us, gave him some change. It was quite a stunt… particularly since he was barefoot.

We got back on our train, and Beth immediately went to sleep. I watched the scenery go by until the sunset and then tried reading unsuccessfully by the ultra dim lights in the train. The train ride was 4 hours, much less than what we’re used to, but for some reason I could not sit still. Beth slept away while I grew more and more bored and uncomfortable. After 3.5 hours, we reached a town where lots of people were jumping off. I was trying to figure out what was happening when the woman facing us told us that we could get off and take a bus that took 15 minutes or stay on the train for another hour. Beth asked if I wanted to do it, but I was already off the seat and making my way to the door.

On the bus there were two drunken Mexican guys that got more and more rambunctious as the trip went on. They were cracking the whole bus up with one liners that we couldn’t understand, and then made everyone go around and say their name and country. Beth and I ducked down and were spared the embarrassment of having to say we were from the US in front of this international community.

We got back to the room with great plans to shower and go out, but we crashed at 9:30 and didn’t get up until the next morning.

We woke up to firecrackers, band music playing, and the sound of large crowds lofting in the windows. It was the day before the Catholic Corpus Christi celebrations, and Cusco was getting an early start. We went down to the square and saw people dancing, bands playing, and large crowds gathered around people performing.

We decided to go get lunch, and settled on a fancy restaurant where we had a delicious trout sandwich and pumpkin soup. We walked down to get a closer look and saw that the crowd was gathered around a group of men dancing in a line, performing some sort of synchronized dance. They were all wearing traditional dress, and some had fake baby llamas hanging from their belts.

Down the way, another crowd was gathered around a group of men dressed in some sort of costume and white masks, and they all carried whips. They were playing out some sort of game where they would take turns whipping each other’s backs. Sometimes two of the men would start a duel, grasp wrists, and with the other hand, whip the other one’s legs in rapid succession. We never did figure out what this was supposed to represent.

After that, we went up to our favorite bar, Norton Rat’s, had a beer, and watched the festivities below. We said goodbye to Cusco, grabbed our bags, and headed for our fated bus ride (see It’s Not All Fun and Games) to Lima.