I am sitting here with a persistent headache which I am not sure is from the altitude on the second day in Cuzco and environs, or the savage beating the tour bus driver gave us today. I was sure we were bouncing literally three feet in the air on certain speed bumps (sadly the seat belt stretched only 2.5), then I saw the identical small Mercedes tour bus in front of us, and watched with amazement, as sure enough hitting a bump the people seated in the back seat were lurched into a Disneyland crescendo of confusion and pain. Damn!
We hit about eight spots for thirty dollars US each. It was the standard deal where the tour guide takes you to where he can make a buck or three from his friend’s kickbacks. We were introduced to some people and suffered two pitches on the bus itself. Itinerary: Pisac market and ruins, Chinchero, Ollyantaytambo and a few smaller places, wide spots in the road. We had the “deluxe” lunch which was a buffet (buffet and deluxe should not be in the same sentence), and then they charged us extra for sparkling water, six sols each.
The Pisac ruins were quite interesting and we went through an Inca tunnel carved out of solid rock. The views and the degree they took the whole terrace farming amazed me. Places that would be considered completely useless anywhere else were terraced. I also really liked Chinchero.
The problem is I saw many, many spots on the road I would have liked to stop but we couldn’t because we were on a tour. That hurt. For some unknown reason the small deviant Quechua children seemed to find a crack in our steely resolve and we purchased a number of items, far more than I had planned on buying most definitely.
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