We spent our five days alone checking out restaurants for the group, finding the groceries we would need for the Inca Trail, and testing our stoves, first unsuccessfully with kerosene, and then more successfully with both leaded and unleaded gasoline. During one of the test fires out in Hostal Loreto's open courtyard, the pigeons flew suddenly, the earth shook, and we experienced a slight earthquake. It was quite exciting. The hotel's help all headed for the middle of the courtyard to avoid any falling debris. Luckily, the Inca walls held and the red clay roof tiles stayed in place. We spent four nights at Loreto before moving ourselves and the group into the Hostal del Inca, where Jim Squire and his family had decided to stay. We'd found a great hostal for the second group trip. Unfortunately, they only had six rooms and couldn't accommodate our first group as a few of the rooms had already been reserved.
Jim's group of four had their share of excitement upon arriving in town. One of the twins was not feeling great on the plane, hadn't eaten the airline food since he was a strict vegetarian, and passed out at the table their first night at dinner. When coca tea didn't bring him around, they took a taxi to the local hospital. Fortunately, Jim S. is a doctor, so he was able to stop the local medical team from removing Mike's healthy appendix. One night of Dramamine and glucose IV's, brought Mike part way back and within a few days he was feeling normal. Mike's night in the hospital, with Jim sleeping in the adjoining bed, cost the whopping equivalent of about twelve dollars and yet common people in Peru frequently die because they can't afford treatment.
After a long flight followed by a long night in the Lima airport, many of our last minute arrivals in Cuzco were as bleary-eyed as we had been. Yet they all stuck it out for our first day's "City Tour". This tour consisted of visiting Cuzco's museums and cathedrals in addition to perusing the city itself and some of its more noteworthy Inca walls. Jim L. had a rough first day as he was suffering from a case of what we thought might be Inca Revenge acquired while spending a couple of days in Lima on his own. Lunch on the verandah at the restaurant Quinta Eulalia was fun, even though figuring out the menu took an inordinate amount of time. An example of one of our difficulties was the entree that translated as "chicken in a silk bomber jacket". A Peruvian band serenaded us through lunch. We became intimately familiar with this band as the days went by. They seemed to follow us from place to place and we eventually asked the staff to get them to leave one evening so we could talk without shouting during our meal. After six hours of touring, we were all happy to take a brief rest before regrouping for dinner at De Mi Pueblo, a pleasant traditional restaurant on the Plaza de Armas. On our way back to the hostal, we observed homeless people without shoes crawling under old blankets to sleep in front of a super market on a 40º night.
Our second day, Carl & Susan M. accompanied us to the central market in the early morning to pick up the things we needed for lunch. Apparently it was a real eye-opener for them. After hearing their stories, the rest of the group convinced them to lead an expedition back before we started our day's activities. Impressed with open air meat and live frog skinning, we thought they might all be vegetarians by end of trip. One of the highlights was watching two men jam a side of beef into the trunk of a taxi. Reynaldo's Spanish speaking driver, nicknamed the Rabbit, collected us in his Toyota van and drove us up to Tambo Machay, an Inca ruin site which is just outside of Cuzco at about 12,500 feet elevation. He dropped us off and we explored this site of Inca baths before starting our descent back to town through various ruin sites. Our next stop was Puca Pucara, the red fort, a site that displayed old irrigation canals, emphasizing the power and importance of water.
Typical Inca Bath
Upper Pisac Ruin
Llama at Ruin Site
