Our hotel manager offered to get up at 5:45 to give us breakfast, and she called us a cab as well. (The breakfast was giant hunks of bread and too sweet juice, but it was a good touch.)
We were at the airport about two hours before our flight, checked in, checked our bags, and went through security. I hadn't even bothered to look if any Peru airports except Lima had the Priority Pass lounges, and, for Arequipa, it was only about 15 minutes before boarding that I saw the sign. Oh well - had to sit with the crowds. And pay exorbitant prices for water.
I fell asleep before take-off, and woke up 15 minutes to landing - which meant I was only asleep for maybe 30 minutes. The quick plane is much nicer than a 9-hour bus trip.
We had just one evening in Cusco before our train the next morning, so we got a taxi to our hostel to drop off our stuff and check out a few things before the one-day tour. It was the first of two of Mama Simona’s hostels we were staying in. I had booked one in Aguas Caliente (for the next evening, after Machu Picchu) and they emailed about the others they had, including this one in Cusco.
We originally had a double room, with a single double bed in it, but we switched to a room with two bunk beds (but still a private bath), splurging on a heater.
The sights lay along a clear walking path that was all downhill. We were trying to play it safe with the altitude, so decided to go as far as we felt, then take a taxi further (or back to the hostel).
Our first stop was the San Pedro market. Our guidebook said to get juice there. Once we entered, I understood why. On the smaller side, as warehouse marketplaces go, the market still had a quarter of its 20-odd rows filled with station after station of juice makers. Each had a veritable bouquet of fruit tastefully arranged in front, and all had the same fruits and same prices.
We sat down at one that another couple had just vacated (when eating street food, always find one with as much turnover as possible) and picked our favorites. A base of either carrot or orange juice (we both chose orange) and then I picked strawberries as Oma picked mangoes. Just like old fashioned malts, we got our full fountain glasses full of the thick and foamy juice, then an extra top up with the remainder in the blender after we were done. The only negative was the large amount of bees and fruit flies around - none bothering us, but many trapped in with the fruit or honey in the glass cases in front of us.
We wandered the aisles afterward, full of liquid, looking for something sweet and solid. Instead, I found a granadilla! These grey “brain” fruits with a crackable skin were so fun and good to eat in Colombia with Mark - I had to get one to have Oma try it. She, like most, was not enthused by the grey matter inside, but I think she didn’t mind it after she tried it.
We had to stop by a PeruRail official office to get our tickets printed for the next day - we had tried to do it in the airport that morning, but their system was down. Thankfully, they had a couple offices close to the squares we were planning on visiting anyway, so we stopped in next.
When we were booking everything before we left, I had accidentally copied my known traveler number instead of my passport number while making some reservation. Since nearly every reservation we made asked for our passport number, from hostels to the Machu Picchu tickets, I had hoped it would be on a reservation that wasn’t very important.
Getting the tickets, it was as I feared - my passport number was incorrect.
I figured there was a high chance that no one would ever stop to compare more than the name, but I didn’t want to even take that chance if it was fixable. So I asked them to update it.
A woman who sounded as hoarse and sick as Oma had to call up the main office, then we had to wait for 15 minutes until they called her back. When the tickets finally got switched, I was no longer sitting next to Oma on either trip. They said the conductors would help us figure it out day-of. We had the correct tickets, and it was time to explore more of Cusco.
The next square over with the Plaza Mayor of Cusco, with its cathedral on one side. The guidebook said it was actually three churches, but we were having trouble figuring out the distinct churches or buildings or what. A completely different church - or maybe it was two others - were on the south side of the square, but we were facing east.
We entered something, and it turned out to be correct. By this point, that fruit juice was sitting in my bladder, so I rushed in, walked quickly through all three churches, then backtracked (picking Oma back up on the way) to find the bathroom.
Now it was time to dawdle our way through. The Catholics really go all out. Each side altar was gold, gold, gold. Many had Mary with precious stone crowns. The middle alter was gorgeous carved wood (with a black Jesus. Unknown if that was fancy ebony or just connecting with the indigenous people.)
A local painter had done the Peruvian version of the last supper. On the table were tradition food, with the main dish a cooked guinea pig - on the plate whole. Still didn’t convince Oma to give it a try. You’d think if it was good enough for Jesus, it’d be good enough for her!
I peeked down into the crypt once we had enough of the massive amounts of excess, then we plotted our next move. It wasn’t so much hunger as a lack of substance from the morning that drove us to go behind the cathedral, up a narrow one-way street, to eat.
The street would have been quiet, except that - despite a one-way sign - cars were stacked up, facing each other, 50 feet deep in both directions. By the time we left our Italian-inspired meal with some leftover thin crust pizza, the traffic jam had gotten unsnarled.
We had one more sight to see - Qorikancha, the sight of an Incan place of worship that then became the base for a church with monks built on the same foundation. We walked up to the crowded entrance, and we were greeted by a man, speaking excited but fluent English, who wanted to be our tour guide.
My dad will listen to accents until he copies them - my Oma doesn’t have that same skill and has had a hard time understanding many of our guides. When she said she understood him the best, I decided that the $10 was worth it to get the tour.
In we went, and off he spouted. The temple was centered against the solstice, so it measured the seasons for the Incas. It was one of the ways they kept their power - by being able to predict solstice, as well eclipses, those the Incans controlled believed in their power.
When I heard a church was built on top of the Incan temple, I wasn't expecting so much temple to be exposed. The massive walls we had passed earlier that day in a taxi were part of the temple, but it was behind the church that had a courtyard and set of 8 or so rooms from the temple days. Our tour really only covered the temple, so we dove deep into the wonder that was this construction project.
First, it was the orientation of the windows and walls. June and December every year, the light comes directly through the window and in the middle of the set of 7 niches. The Incan calendar our guide described was something like 12 months of 28 (each of the middle niches were used twice as the sun swung back and forth - so the five middle ones, used twice, plus the two outer ones equaled 12), with a dozen or so feast day within those which made it equal 365.
The next building marvel was the stones used. They were a dark volcanic, like many we've seen, but were carved into perfect blocks, so no mortal was used between them. The stones lay so close, a knife (or credit card) couldn't fit in the cracks between.
A few earthquakes have happened since the Incan times, and some of the blocks were slightly misaligned, but another smart structural decision was to use one single block above the doorways and windows, so, despite the walls shifting on either side during a quake, the roofline wouldn't collapse.
Our guide showed us a few maps the Incas had created - one of the solar system, with a round Earth by a round sun and other planets they had observed, and one of Machu Picchu, where roads radiated outward from a center point, with city dots along the straight lines. The second painting gave over 200 sites of worship around the trading center, and ruins have been found accurately in many of those locations. It gives just one more guess as to Machu Picchu's function - a trading post.
Our guide left us to peek into the Catholic monastery and church that was over a part of the temple as he went to find other tourists to supplement his income. A modern choir loft (the older parts of the church had faced either an earthquake, a fire, or both, so only new was on display) and a few different rooms for the monks, and we were on our way.
I wanted to see the front of Qorikancha again, since it had looked spectacular from the road. The entrance was opposite, so we picked clockwise to walk around the massive building. It was the wrong choice. A few small roads dead-ended into a set of stairs that put us at the very downhill side of the green lawn out front. With ominous clouds, it was time to hail a taxi and head back.
Oma took a nap as I read most of a book from the lending library at the hostel. She woke up with her cough and sore throat worse, and on the end of her cough drops. I ventured out at 7 or so to find a pharmacy, explained her symptoms, and got cough syrup and pain meds. She wasn't very hungry, so I heated up our pizza leftovers for myself and bought a ramen noodle cup from the front desk to make for her.
I asked the front desk about getting to the train station in the morning - I knew it was about a half hour from city center. The woman on staff had another pair of guests leaving for that train and that station as well, so we agreed to share a cab. Oma and I also decided to leave a bag at the hostel - we were going to back in Cusco after one night in Aguas Caliente, and the train had baggage restrictions, so why not leave some of our dirty and unnecessary clothes.
We packed then had a restless night as Oma continued coughing.
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