The only hot chick in Cusco

Well I couldn’t resist chatting up this carrot juice selling princess of the Andes, what a cutey! I didn’t ask but guess she’s married as they get married at 12 here. But seriously the Inca chicks are quite ugly, hairy and smelly generally, but little Erika here I thought was an exception and a really nice girl too. I was in love for much of this afternoon. Here is a photo of the competition too. Man I am ugly. Well I’m hanging out with two Germans and a Canadian Slovak so we’ll go for a beer tonight so I might even shave.

Cusco first impression

I woke up next morning at 8am in Cusco after an all night rollercoaster bus up the mountains. Cusco is higher than Huaraz and is actually the Inca capital. it’s a pretty city, and over touristed as it’s the gateway to Machu Pichu and all the main Inca sites. You get accosted every 5 seconds by touts but I just have fun with them and try to sell them stuff. There are loads of really beautiful buildings, and its much much nicer than Lima (which I would avoid if I were you) I’m in a cool hotel called ‘killa’ hostel. I think the humour of the odd name is lost on the locals though. There was a beautiful place called ‘convento de la merced’ which is for some reason not in the guidebooks (which is a plus straight away) which has cool silver crowns of thorns and the second biggest pearl in the world, but also is a pretty amazing building.

There are however far too many gringos (white people) here who are particularly annoying. These kind of grungy spoilt rich kid backpackers who are ‘going ethnic’ and wearing stupid gear and playing bongo drums on their gap year. Idiots. I didn’t ever act so pretentious when I was 19 so no need for you to. I feel like stealing their wallets and daddys amex cards. On saying that I’ll probably end up in bed with one tonight ;o)

Today I flew over the Nasca lines. It was in a tiny plane and the pilot was mad as a hatter. He was going one handed most of the time and diving and lurching to get the best views. The drawings themselves are really small compared to the numerous large runways all over the plain. I’m not sure why no one seems to notice that. Seems Zecharia Sithcin is correct from what I can see that it was an ancient landing point for the ships of the Annunaki/Nepheliim. (check www.sitchin.com ) There even is a large drawing of an astronaut, I mean come - on! The town of Nasca is quite ok. I had lunch In a good place called El Porton with some Chinese guys. And spend a while chewing the fat with the main police guy as he spoke some English. I had to report my video camera stolen too to him. Every person in Peru who speaks English has a favourite film, Braveheart, and every one asks if its really true, was the English king a homo. I usually answer that all English are like that and they laugh. I like these Peruvian dudes, cool guys and pretty friendly when they aren’t stealing your camera.

Ica and Huacachina Oasis

That night I decided to get a bus to a place called Huacachina, which is a desert oasis about 4 hours south of lima. I got there late at night so checked in to a random hotel and fell asleep. The next morning was pretty surreal. I was in an oasis in the middle of a desert, surrounded by really high sand dunes. It didn’t help that I’m reading Bulgakovs’ ‘master and margerita’ at the same time. There was a ‘sand boarding competition’ on, I think it might have been a big one as the tv was there. One of the contestants kindly let me sledge down on her sand board, although I should have tried sand boarding really. All the hotels in this little place are similar. Check for one that has a swimming pool that works though, as mine only was on some of the time. Its pretty cheap and the ONLY place to eat is called ‘Bolepo’ which also is a hotel. It was amazing food and really cheap. There is no wifi anywhere but there are a couple of internet cafes. Just ignore that the hotels say ‘internet’ it’s normally a lie to get people in and their internet is permenantly broken.

I went for a walk in the desert, aptly prepared with a towel, a postcard to write, and socks so I didn’t burn my feet, a book on Esoteric Science by Rudolph Steiner and woefully non useful factor 2. After 2 hours I was totally lost in the dunes, but anyway, I wrote a postcard and got burnt. And wandered around and eventually saw a dune buggy in the distance (they do tours in the desert) and so I followed its direction and got home. It was truly beautiful in the desert, with not a living soul around, and the amazing colours of sand. luckily i just met a girl in the bus station who took a photo of me there so here it is!,

The Point Hostal (photos to follow!)

After an uncomfortable night on the bus back, next to ‘el gordo’ (some fat guy) who was snoring all night I got to my home from home in Lima, the point hostel. I suppose the good thing about it is that they can book all your stuff ahead from there (they have a travel centre in house) so it makes a great place to base yourself. If only they got rid of the drug dealers and cokeheads who seem to permanently hang around there then it would be a great spot.

Chavin de huantar

Chavin de Huantar was amazing, I recommend it, even just for the crazy bus trip to it. Don’t expect anyone to speak any English all though. I did seem to end up with a very nice school group from I think north Peru, who were practicing their spanglish on me and we took some funny photos which the teacher will send me and ill put on here I hope. It was raining heavily and on the way back one bridge was broken, so the bus took a swim across the river. I wasn’t expecting it and all my postcards got washed away. You don’t expect tour buses to take the ’cross the river’ route generally.

Pruvian Mountain Roads

Peruvian mountain roads

This morning I left Huaraz early for a trip to Chavin De Huantar - a pre Inca temple that was built 3000 years ago, by guys who worshipped an Alien guy who pretended he was Jaguar. I suppose he was there checking that’s where the gold was. The trip via a normal tour company was half the price of the hustlers that get you at the bus so just ignore them as you usually do. The bus went through some pretty crazy mountain passes - I don’t know if you know about Peruvian mountain roads but they twist and turn and invariably are mud tracks which crazed trucks and buses race through and often die on. The is a corner on this road called ‘Curva de Diablo’ and one called ‘save yourself if you can’ must be Peruvian humour. They obviously don’t think it dangerous enough because since it rains a lot you get numerous landslides. Obvious solution - mine into the rock adjacent to the road, just in case! I couldn’t believe it, there are working coal mines on the side of the road here, basically multiplying the chances of landlslides by a factor of ten billion. They must really need that coal at any cost.

My camera was stolen today so no photos till i buy a new one tomorrow!