I was still sound asleep when we arrived in Cusco around 6 am. With only about seven hours of sleep, I was definitely not well-rested. Tineke, the Dutch girl we met at the Peruvian border, and I were on the same bus. We met up outside, waiting for our luggage to be offloaded. When I asked her how her ride was, she responded with a very unpleasant expression, saying it wasn’t good at all. She had fallen ill during the night and looked rather bleak. I didn’t have a place to stay yet, so it made sense to join her and Kathi at their hostel. Noticing how she was barely able to stand, let alone walk the 40 minutes to the hostel, I took the lead and organised a taxi. When we arrived at the hostel, we were fortunate enough to be able to check in immediately. This was an absolute godsend, as the alternative would have been waiting six hours in a zombie-like state for the rooms to open up.
I didn’t manage to sleep much and soon got up to explore the town. Cusco is a beautiful colonial town with cobblestone streets leading to a picturesque main square, centred around an extravagant church. After a short stroll, I ventured back to the hostel. Kathi was up, but Tineke was still quite ill. Well rested and eager to explore, Kathi asked if I would join her. We strolled around the main square and the surrounding alleyways. We followed a paths up to a church that offered an impressive viewpoint overlooking the city. Besides an amazing view, we also found ourselves in the middle of a wedding photoshoot. The contrast was striking: two scruffily dressed backpackers surrounded by elegantly dressed people in suits, ties and dresses.
For the rest of the day, we continued walking around, eating, and joining a walking tour. I learned that the colonists often destroyed indigenous temples and built their churches on top of the ruins. In Cusco, this is evident as the first two metres of many church structures are Inca-built. Leaving the Inca structure was intentional, serving as an intimidation tactic.
We made plans to go out that evening, and I was excited because I hadn’t had a good social session in a long time. The trek I was doing only started two days later, so I had some time to nurse a hangover. Kathi met a local guy and got some recommendations on where to have a few drinks. As the evening approached, Kathi informed me that we were meeting him since he got off work early. “The more, the merrier,” I thought. However, upon arrival, it became evident that it wasn’t a group of three, but rather two plus one, and I somehow found myself the third wheel on a date. There’s no fun in trying to maintain conversation with a guy that was only interested in one thing, the girl next to me.
As the awkward evening progressed, it unexpectedly became slightly eventful for entirely different reasons. A few weeks earlier, an incident occurred at one of the bars, prompting the police to enforce a midnight closure. They patrolled the streets and alleys to ensure compliance. Despite this, the bars and clubs continued to operate secretly. At midnight, they would shut their doors while monitoring security cameras for police patrols. When officers were spotted, the music would be lowered, and everyone instructed to hush. There were many suspenseful moments as we observed the policemen on the security cameras passing by while we remained dead silent inside the closed bar. Once they were gone, the music resumed, and people resumed drinking and socialising. This pattern repeated every 15 minutes or so until about 2 am when the police left the area entirely, and the larger clubs reopened. I’m not sure if this initiative is effective other than providing a slightly calmer two hours that might prompt some to call it a night. The clubs still operate late into the night, and I’m sure plenty of people still get very drunk. The police must be aware of this too. Nevertheless, it was an interesting experience that almost made up for the terrible social dynamics.
The following day, nursing a bigger hangover than I would have liked, I made the final arrangements for the pinnacle of my South American trip: A five day trek to legendary Machu -Friggen- Picchu!
