Semana Santa, Day 2 (later)

As we enter the terminal in Cusco we walk the gamut of tour operators calling out to us. We meet a nice woman Katherine, she works for a different hotel and tour agency, but offers to take us to our hotel and wait and see if they have room for us a few days early. We get to Niños Hostel, where we have reservations in three days. They have room for us. While they are checking us in we sit down with Katherine and she gives us some very low pressure information of what Cusco has to offer. We sign up for a Pisac and Sacred Valley tour on Sunday. We check into our room and sleep until 1:00pm.

After our nap, hunger wakes us we decide to go for a walk. Getting our bearings in town we walk to the Plaza de Armas (the main square in every Peruvian town). We walk up a few side streets until we come to Chez Maggie’s. We order a starter of Chocolo con Quesito (a corn cob with enormous kernels and soft cheese) and a cuatro estaciones pizza (a wood fired pizza with four sections: cheese, ham, fruit, and vegetables). We have discovered food with flavor, something Colombian food is seriously lacking. We instantly reassess our plan of grocery store meals, and opt for spending more on this vacation than we thought, but getting our fill of all the food that we are missing from home.

A little later we find SAS, the tour operators we are taking for the Inca trail starting on Wednesday. We reserved with them about three months ago to get the last two spots on the trip. We sit down at the desk, give our names. Hmmm…we aren’t on the list. Please let something on this vacation go the way it is supposed to. The woman helping us goes back to search through the books with another worker. We sit for about 10 minutes sweating. Our Inca historical vacation, not quite the way it should be; no birth place of the Incas at Lake Titicaca and now no famed trail to the hidden golden city, Machu Picchu, the celebrated El Dorado. We did arrive in Cusco, the navel of the Inca kingdom. Is this all we get, a fuzzy navel of a vacation? They find our names, all is okay. We get a quick run down of the trail and are told we need to come back on Tuesday at 7:00pm for an orientation with the rest of our group.

We walk the streets and try to find a yarn store identified in the guide books. In the land of alpaca and llama one must have their priorities. Unfortunately, the guide book published three years ago does not have a correct location, the building is gutted and in the process of a large remodel. We head back to the plaza, Heather buys Peruvian and Colombian flag patches for her backpack and Sean buys an alpaca hat for 10 soles (about $3 dollars). The lack of a full night sleep starts to hit hard. We walk back to the hotel and read and relax. At 7:00pm we are both in bed. It is cold! Three thick alpaca wool blankets and one small lighter llama wool blanket help us get comfortable as we drift off to sleep.