First bite of Perú: Cusco

Our last morning in Copacabana we tried a place that we had been curious about: El condor and the eagle.

It's a cafe owned by an Irish expat and his local wife, and they had what we had been dreaming of: beautiful real coffee!

Also really nice Irish bread, juice, scrambled eggs, and one of the coolest ideas I've seen: notebooks with traveler-for-traveler recommendations. Handwritten inspiration from other people who decided to take the time to share their discoveries.

It was a filling breakfast in more than one sense; and energized like that we departed towards Perú.

The country with the coolest official logo.

And also the best popular beer (out of the countries we saw on this trip)

 The bus in which we crossed the border had windows that couldn't be open, and we were unlucky enough to share the (very small) space with a bunch of A.H.s, which was a challenge for our noses.

But finally we made it to Puno for a one night stop on our way to Cusco.

The fairly neat city centre of Puno.

In Puno we noticed two things: we were completely acclimatized to the altitude, and one border crossing can change everything in just a couple of hours.

The first thing we did: go for dinner and order spicy, tasty food and Pisco sour, the Peruvian signature drink. We could barely believe it after Copacabana's blandness... food with taste! spice! 

Happy me, Pisco sour, and the feeling
of waiting for food with flavours.

After dinner we walked around for a while and smelled the scents of a new country and pointed at all the curious things around.

 In Perú you can see something you don't in the southern countries: the Asian influence. 

In colonial times, the Spaniard invaders *spits on the ground* brought slaves from the (also invaded) Philippines to the colonies in all of South America. 

The people brought their culture, their music and the flavours of their cuisine, and (despite the dark origin of their arrival) are responsible for some of the wonderful cultural colour of the country, a melting pot of different  influences that makes Perú one of the most interesting places I've been to.

Walking around you see how people's features start getting different from those of the neighboring country. Also the "Chifas", chinese-style very cheap eateries, and the huge variety of food and spices at the markets. 

We enjoyed our walk and then went to get some sleep, only to be woken up by the "included breakfast" call AT 5 IN THE MORNING.

So since we were already awake (by the cruel, cruel, crazy hostal people), we got ready to keep going towards Cusco.

Chey packing bags. In the background, yet another wonderful wall view.

...

As we usually do when we get to a new place at night, we had booked a place in Cusco beforehand, and headed straight there.

 The place turned out to be too cold and horribly lit (seriously, hostel people... it costs the same to get warm lights, and it makes your guests feel like they're *not* in the morgue, which is always a nice thing). So first thing in the morning we went out looking for a new place, and found a warmer, well lit, private double room for cheaper than two beds in a dorm room. Boom.

Nice light and wifi in the room.

Once we were settled in our new room, we decided to go roam around... we did a lot of roaming around in Cusco, which might be the most beautiful city in South America. 

Adventuring outside the touristy area was fun and intense.

But the centre of the city is just as marvelous with its colonial buildings.

Religious stuff is everywhere, and it mixes
with the local indigenous traditions.

Plaza de Armas, the main square.

Very dignified Inca guy in the centre of Plaza de Armas.

Adobe buildings all around.

Impressive church.

Another view of Plaza de Armas.

More colonial stuff and the "barrios" up the hill.

As many dogs as Valparaiso has cats.

A luckier dog.

Typical costumes at a festival.

Beautiful night Plaza de Armas.

Inca guy's nightlife, everyone wants a photo with him.

Siesta culture.

Llama culture, and a happy Chey.

"Machupicchu museum" and... the fun fact that each country changes
slang, so what probably means something else in Perú would mean
er... "lady parts house" in Argentina: "Casa concha".

Beautiful Inca inspired mural.

Fruit selling ladies.

  The only downside of being in Cusco and being obvious tourists is the harassment of people trying to sell all sorts of things ("Massage, lady, MASAAAAAGE!", "Machu Picchu tours, amigos!", "Paintings!", "Alpaca stuff!" "Come eat our best Guinea pig!"). 

Otherwise, we enjoyed ourselves wildly. So much that we spent a full week there before MP, and another full week after. 

Weeks of the most amazing food, beautiful ancient ruins, cute animals, bar hopping, and decent (tough sometimes lukewarm) coffee.

Since there's so much picture material and I don't want you to leave the blog out of boredom, I'll break this in two posts and show you, to begin, the ruins right outside the Imperial City of Cusco: Sacsayhuaman, Qenqo, Pucapucara and Tambomachay .

We took a local bus where we were the only non locals,
to get off  in the end at this lush green area.

There was only one tour group other than us (advantages of not being early
birds). I acted as a fake guide for Chey and made up a story for the ruins.

We enjoyed the peace and quiet of Tambomachay,
 and walked down to the other ruins.

Everything is imressive, but this was sort of cute.

There was a big group of sheep and llamas grazing at
Pucapucara, the second set of ruins going down.

It's some sort of old market, according to a guide whose
 words we eavesdropped overheard.

Here the camera went flat (hey, there's a reason why this blog is called
"The random adventurers" and not "The very well prepared adventurers").

We didn't cry too much, and continued exploring while
taking pictures with Chey's phone.

Which were not too bad, by the way!

Next was Qenqo, a mind blowing cave carved off a huge rock, surrounded by
more rock carvings, like this comfy rock couches.

Relaxing in the sun, Quechua style.
(truth is: it's not known if it was built by the Incas or the Quechuas)

 Actually, rumour has it that the couch thingies were actually for blood sacrifices.

The cave was a bit too dark to take phone pictures, but it has the same structures and a small canal that might have been to let the blood flow.

It does have a strangely powerful energy.

Walking to the last ruins, we finally tried
Inca Kola, the peruvian drink that sells
more than Coca-cola in this country.

It tastes like someone melted bubble gum and added sugar on top.

Finally we made it to Sacsayhuaman, the last ruins going down.

They're huge and generously sprinkled with gringos.

Luckily we arrived when every tour group was leaving.

 Also the sun was setting and Chey was in shorts, so we didn't stay for too long.

On the way to the road where we took the local bus again, we saw a freshly married couple having a photoshoot with a huge white Jesus statue in the background (we didn't take photos of the Big Jesus, our bad).

Based on what we saw many times in Peru, a good amount of people seem to get married fairly old, and they usually look very serious, almost grim, when they're having their picture taken. I found it mysterious.

It was altogether a great day of ruin exploring.

 (stay tuned for our next TRA Cusco edition post, where I'll bomb you with cute animal photos and talk about my favorite subject: FOOD!) 

Beautiful sunsets and horrible food in Copacabana

Two notes before you begin: 
1)This is probably my most complainy post ever. All of the things I say are true though, but believe it or not I cherish the Copacabana experience with all my heart.  

2)FYI: many people hear (read) "Copacabana" and think of Copacabana- Brazil... but just so you know, the Brazilian homonym is actually named after the catherdral at the Bolivian town, "Nuestra Señora de Copacabana" (the more you know...) This is the Copacabana I'm going to talk about...

 The only way of getting to Copacabana after leaving La Paz on a bus is by two "ferry" thingies: one of the ferries takes the empty buses across a lake, and a different one takes the people.

 The reason for this separate crossing became obvious as soon as we saw the state the bus-carrying-ferries were in: several people were needed to get the water out of them after a single crossing.

Beautiful local old man driving the people-carrying boat.

The ferry thingies

Bus and minivan getting on the thingie.

After crossing, this boy had the job of getting the water out of the base.

Just a pretty view of the workers.

...

We had so many people telling us to go to Copacabana, that I had built it up in my head as some sort of paradise. I couldn't wait to get to Isla del sol and enjoy the calm of Lago Titicaca.

The unbelievable blueness of Titicaca

 We also knew that Copacabana was highly religious, being home of the internationally known chatedral.

So imagine our surprise when we got off the bus with our backpacks and started walking through a town where (literally) every single person was off their face.

People walking around, young and old, were holding diverse bottles or plastic cups obviously filled with an assortment of alcoholic beverages.

Lady enjoys a drink in solitude.

Lovely drunk couple walk towards the sunset.

Some groups were just singing out of tune, some were sitting around with glassy eyes, staring at the ground.

From many houses we could hear loud cumbias and typical music, and we could see people going in and out, half-dancing and walking on a broken zigzag line.

And don't get me started on the public-urinating-people and the puke puddles we had to dodge.

Still confused, we found a ridiculously cheap lake-view hotel, with a very nice room and very unfriendly staff that apparently only wanted to be outside and enjoy the party (which they did, as soon as we checked in).

Soon we found out that there had been a traditional dance festival, and that was the apparent reason why the very respectable locals were behaving like crazed 20 year old gringos on a gap year.

You'll excuse the lack of good close-up pictures of the
drunk people. We didn't want to be those tourists.

...

We decided to explore around a little bit, have dinner (very bland pasta), and then go to bed early to make the most of the next day (also the altitude was getting crazy and I could barely climb three flights of stairs without dying).

Our first Copacabana sunset.

A local lady (probably drunk) chills next to the rental pedal-swans.

...

In the morning we went to the restaurant area to find breakfast. All of the places looked similar, so we decided to go to the one with outdoor sitting and without super loud music.

The options on the menu were nothing to write home about, so we kept it simple: café con leche and pancakes, quick and easy.

 But we didn't consider our waiter. He was already (or still?) under the influence.

Badly, terribly, truly-madly-deeply drunk.

And that didn't stop him from popping a beer open while we waited for our coffees (the coffees arrived half an hour later and cold, the pancakes took almost half an hour more and were also cold).

Trying to make him understand we wanted to pay was painful.

After that lovely breakfast experience, we went and booked a boat trip to Isla del sol, happy that it was a beautiful sunny day.

Beautiful sunny church.

Beautiful sunny day at the docks.

 While we walked around waiting for the departure time of our boat, we started to notice a pattern: at least half the people in Copacabana were Argentinian middle-class wanna-be hippies (or, as we lovingly call them, armpit hippies).

I wouldn't mind the AH if it wasn't for their tendency to be loud, smelly and arrogant, and do all of that as close to other people as they can. That is probably one of the reasons why locals in Copacabana were the least friendly towards tourists I've seen on the trip. I can't really blame them: if my town mostly got those kind of tourists, I would also be grumpy.

A.H. Most of them looked like they hadn't had a shower in months.

The time to board our cute little boat arrived, and we cheerfully sat on the upper part of it, looking at the beautiful scenery around us.

Leaving Copacabana behind.

It wasn't until a while later that we realized that all of the other boats (including the ones that left shore after us) were way ahead us. Apparently, one of the propellers was broken, and that's the story of how the 45-minute trip became a 2 hour trip.

Another one made us bite the dust.

 The result of that was that we didn't get to spend much time at Isla del sol.

But we still enjoyed it, it was very beautiful, colorful and sunny.

Random tiny island next to Isla del sol.

Old indigenous buildings as seen from the boat.

More than the ancient land terraces and the gorgeous view of the deep blue lake, I was amazed by the contrast between the hard working locals (working alongside their animals,  farming and carrying their goods) and all of us tourists with our daypacks and our pasty pale skin (because yes, in Bolivia even I look pasty pale, picture that).

Little girl and her llama.

Ladies carry just as much as their donkeys.

Bolivia feels like traveling back in time, all the time. Even for someone who grew up in South America. 

The respect for the indigenous and traditional lifestyle in that country (with its good and its bad things), and the way it blends with bits of "modern" life is something I haven't seen before.

Locals have learnt that the way to attract costumers is to
offer wifi. Sometimes there's actual wifi where offered!

More of the blueness I couldn't get tired of.

I met a kitty.

The crops and the farming terraces that have been there for ages.

Hairy baby.

Local lady chills by the lake.

Fun times!

 We were certainly not looking forward to the painfully slow boat trip back to Copacabana but we had no other choice, so we endured another two hours to get back.

As we had dinner (nachos, the only option with some flavour we found) on a deck overlooking the lake, all of the locals that walked down the street were still as drunk as one person can be without falling into a coma.

I don't have more pictures of drunk people, but here's a lovely sunset as seen
through a lamp.

Sunset silhouettes.

...

 The last day we spent in Copacabana we were seriously altitude-tired. So when Chey, bravely, decided to go up the hill, I stayed in town writing and reading by the lake, and then doing the same in the hotel room.

Beautiful view that Chey captured while I was somewhere down there.

So. Much. Garbage. Proof that tourists can be horribly careless.

 When Chey came back from his hill exploring, we did something we wanted to do since we first arrived: we rented one of the badly painted, old-looking, awfully kitch swans, and Chey pedalled us into the sunset. It was probably one of the most ridiculous and most romantic things that ever happened to me.

Our swan, Vikingo.

Copacabana at sunset.

Swan riders.

More of the sunsets. Bolivia has the first prize for sunsets.

See?

This joke only makes sense in Spanish.

Boats (I know, my captions keep getting better and better)

More birds enjoying the scenery.

After that, the altitude showed us again that it was more powerful than us. We were tired  and knew that the 3812 masl were the reason, especially for me, having done nothing all day.

One last time we tried to get a dinner with some flavour, which proved to be impossible after we walked out of a place with a huge "Vegetarian restaurant" sign that didn't have more than the usual 4 or 5 vegetarian options.

We ended up settling for a tasteless pizza with tasteless cheese and a few tasteless things on top and went back to our room to get some sleep.

"I climbed a hill and drove a swan today, and it was too much" said Chey, right before falling asleep to the sound of me reading Harry Potter and the chamber of secrets.