Having spoken to many a fellow traveller on our way around South America we came to learn that Cuzco was, by all accounts, a shit hole not to be lingered upon. But if like us you want to visit the revered Inca site of Machu Picchu, Cuzco is, in it's proximity to the Gringo Promised Land a logical base camp and a necessary evil. We stayed in Cuzco twice, both before and after our big trip to the Inca ruins, and were relieved to find that the city wasn't nearly as much of a tourist-robbing stab spot as we had been led to believe.
We stayed at the laughably titled Walk-On-Inn. Situated as it was at the top of a very steep hill at an altitude of 3,400 meters, it would more accurately be named 'The Claw-Your-Way-Up-What-Seems-Like-A-Mountain-All-The-While-Panting-Like-A-Dog-In-A-Hot-Car-Before-Collapsing-At-The-Entrance-In-A-Crumpled-Heap-A-Shell-Of-The-Person-You-Once-Were-Inn'. Despite this minor drawback, we liked the hostel for its beautiful views of the town below and for its friendly staff, who took great pride in meticulously polishing every leaf of the hundreds of indoor plants.
Our lofty hostel served as a good base for exploring the many eccentricities of this much maligned place, one such quirk being the local attitude to animals.
Exhibit A.
Yes, this picture is what it looks like. A trio of Peruvian women knitting and clutching small lambs. Yes, the lambs have woolly hats on. The ladies have gone with this seasons must have head accessory - the lampshade. This photo pretty much encapsulates the sublime/ridiculous balancing act that characterises many a custom the continent over. It wouldn't have surprised me to see these women weaving their garments using yarn straight from the backs of these little sheep. If there was ever an animal less in need of a woolly bonnet... No matter. We wandered into another hostel in search of a travel agent and found a tiny lamb frolicking about with his green parrot friend. Yep, that's something you see every day. Also commonly sighted are people walking around the streets of Cuzco with a llama on a rope. Unblinkingly we accepted this to be the Peruvian equivalent of the classic British tramp with a dog on a string.
Another thing that I will remember about Cuzco is its inhabitants love of gold bridgework. When looking around for trips to Machu Picchu and conversing in fractured Spanish to people in little travel offices, I couldn't help singing my own little song - 'The Man With The Midas Tooth' - in my head, of course. On a trip to San Blas (the area that is to Cuzco what Montmartre is to Paris) we came across two initially intimidating but eventually amiable policemen. The one with the blingy, Jaws from James Bond teeth was called Ebert while his sidekick was introduced as John Rambo. Our delight faded to disappointment as this turned out to be no more than a nickname. Eddy was Rambo's crime fighting name by day. 'Thank god it's their job to protect us and not rob us of our valuables and lives' we breathed as we said our goodbyes to the chatty rozzers. The fact was, the two men were built like brick shithouses and Ebert had a handshake vice-like enough to reduce a man's digits to an unrecognisable pulp. The presence of such hulking policemen certainly seemed to do the trick. We roamed the idyllic cobbled streets of Cuzco largely unmolested, except for the occasional offer of a massage (insert own happy ending gag here).
Much to Matt's chagrin he had forgotten to bring out his knitting needles and flock.
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