Cusco Chores

To Cusco, Peru

For the second night in a row, we stumbled off a bus early in the morning. It's great that the kids seem to sleep so well, but for Meg and me it's a different story. If I was awake once, I was awake twenty times. Here in South America, they actually check those little luggage tickets you always get at the airport (and never use). Either we didn't get the tickets or I misplaced them. Fortunately, through the process of elimination, we and our bags were reunited.

Happily on the way to the hotel

After getting out of the taxi, we found ourselves on a narrow stone street outside a pair of locked wooden doors. If this was La Casa de San Blas, there were no signs to show it. Just as I was calling the contact number from our email confirmation, a man walking by produced a key and opened the door to the inner courtyard before continuing down the street. Luckily, Susana, the proprietor, texted a few minutes later and we were soon inside our apartment.

With all our recent bus travel, Dex and Kylie had little interest in seeing the town or joining us for our organizational chores. Plus, the flat where we were staying was quite large with a living room and small kitchen downstairs and two bedrooms and bathroom upstairs. Within a few minutes of arriving, Kylie had settled into a little desk upstairs and both she and Dex were drawing Amazon animals from a “how to draw” book they had found.

Home sweet home

The morning mostly consisted of getting money from ATMs (soles and US dollars), exchanging left over bolivianos, going to the post office, and stopping by the Salkantay Trekking office to pay for the balance of our upcoming Machu Picchu hike. Since the kids had found DVDs by the TV, we promised to watch a movie before our 7 p.m. briefing session. A pirated version of Avatar ended up as the movie of choice. Meg and I hadn't seen it since it was first released in the theaters. Even after all these years, the special effects and incredible creatures and landscapes are very impressive. It was also fun to see that the New Zealand special effects company, Weta Workshop, (which we had visited in Wellington) was featured in the credits.

Old Incan wall in town

Cusco Mural

At 7:00 we made our way to the Salkantay Trekking office and met the other "chicos" doing the hike. Our guide, KJ (Karl Joset), set our expectations that we were a family and he was the papa. In other words, listen up and do as I say. Our group appeared to be a small one, but after some shuffling of customers, it ended up that we were a "family" of ten plus two guides. (Meg found out afterwards that because of the kids, our group was assigned an additional guide.) As to be expected, it was a neat international group. England, Holland and Denmark were represented, as well as another couple from San Antonio. After looking at some of the distances of this tour, it is a good thing that we'll be without our packs, despite Dex's objections. On the other hand, it looks like our early mornings will be continuing for a while. Tomorrow's pickup time: 4:50 a.m.!

Pre-hike juice reinforcement