From Arequipa we went to Cusco the ancient capital of the Inca empire and according to their point of view the navel of the world. (Cosquo as the town is called in Quechua means navel.) The journey started with a surprise. We boarded the bus in the evening prepared for a overnight journey. Once we occupied our seats a man came and asked us for our tickets. We showed them to him but he kept insisting on a "boleto de embarque" - an embarkation card which we obviously could not show. The man got angry and we had to leave the bus again. Having no idea what is going on we followed him quite astonished and confused. As it emerged when leaving from any train, bus or air terminal in Peru you have to buy an embarkation card as kind of tax to use the transportation premises which of nobody had told us. It would be the duty of the conductor to control the payment of that which in our case was not done so we could enter the bus without having paid the embarkation card. So at the end the unkind man apologized to us but a big discussion with the responsable employees of the bus company followed which took almost an hour. Finally the bus could leave and definitely a little relieved we started our journey to the navel of the world.
We came there early at the next morning and immediately liked the place. Cusco is situated in a basin at an altitude of more than 3.300 m.a.s.l. surrounded by scenic mountains that reach more than 4.000 m and are vegetated by grass and only a few mainly eucalyptus trees. We found a nice hostel, checked in, took a rest to relax from the overnight bus ride which is not as comfortable here as in Chile because roads are partially in quite bad conditions and leading in many curves up and down over the altiplano. Then we started to explore town. Cusco is very hilly with almost no plain street or square. Because the colonial town is built on top of the ruins of the Inca town you see many typical Spanish colonial buildings constructed on basements of Inca walls. Highlight of the latter is a huge 12-angled stone in the fundament of a wall which is that well arranged that you can't even put a needle in between it and the neighbouring stones. The roads are very small, many of them too narrow for cars because the Incas did not know the wheel. Apart many of them are very steep or even constructed as staircases. As in any Spanish colonial town there are churches and monasteries at almost every corner. There is an artist's quarter where many painters, goldsmiths, tailors and other artisans from all over the world have their workshops and you can find a lot of cosy art cafes and stylish restaurants with fusion cuisine from all continents.
The next days we kept exploring the town and its surroundings. There is a huge market where you can find everything from restaurants with typical Peruvian kitchen, vegetables, fruits, cheese, meat, handicrafts, flowers, herbs, clothes and even strange things like coca flour, dried lamb foetuses for ceremonial purposes or stalls where they sell tobacco, ayuhasca, san pedro cactus and other hallucinogen plants which here are legal due to their traditional use as ceremonial plants by the indigenous people. These holy ceremonies are even offered here to tourists.
One day we did a horse ride to some close Inca ruins. It brought us to the ruins of Saqsaywaman, a kind of holiday retreat for the Inca just out of downtown and another archaeological site called Point X because it is still not known what it was used for. There are the ruins of some houses around a small hill which is burred completely by many caves and subterranean corridors which you can explore. Then we rode to a ceremonial cave where you can find images of the Inca trilogy of condor, puma and snake, representing the three worlds in which the Incas believed, caved out of the rock.
Finally we celebrated Inés' birthday in Cusco together with local friends. They showed us Cusco's nightlife which is quite entertaining. There are many bars and discotheques where are all kinds of music are played. Either live on stage or played by Djs you can here everything from rock with traditional Andean elements over salsa to nowadays chart hits. What they have in common is a very unique mixed crowd of tourists, local people, youngsters and even elderly people dancing to the salsa rhytms.
So Cusco is definitely a nice, interesting place with a mystic, historical touch on the one hand and an international one on the other hand. A place where you can breathe the spirit of tha ancient Inca empire at every corner and this spirit is still alife.
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