We finally arrived to cusco early Wednesday morning. Unfortunately it was not just early, it was super early: 5:45 kind of early. After being thoroughly harassed outside of the train station for taxis and hotels, we got on our way to the center of the city. One of the things you have to understand about getting haggled outside of an airport/bus station is that they don't leave you alone. You tell them that you don't need a hotel or that you're good and they almost get pissed when you walk away. You'll hear them exclaim "ay" or something and then come follow after you insisting that you need to stay at this hotel. Well for those of you who know me well, know that I'm not exactly a morning person, and you know even better that I don't do well before my morning coffee. So, knowing this, I'm sure you can imagine how well I handled the "vendors" outside of the bus station before 6 am. I actually think that I may have slightly frightened one of them. He was trying to get us to stay at his hotel, and he wouldn't leave us alone. I finally turned to him and sharply said "dije que estamos bien" he just gave me this look of "ok...I won't be talking with her anymore" and then left us alone.
Once we got to the plaza, we began to look for a hostel. I'm sure all of those hostel owners loved us ringing their bells at 6 am. I mean we would have stopped at the first hostel, if it wasn't 90 soles a night!! I mean, for real, that's roughly $30 a night!!! Estaban locos! We finally found a spot about an hour later for what we thought was 30 pesos....in reality, he meant 30 per person... We didn't become aware of this until the following morning when he politely asked for more money from Megs. She was confused and came in the room telling me to go talk to him. After realizing this, we still decided that it was going to be cheaper than the bulk of the hostels in town. Cusco was kind of expensive in that regard, mostly because we were trying to stay close to the plazas.
I'm going to have serious issues adjusting back to the expenses in the states. The rate here is roughly 2.75 soles to the dollar. And you're money goes a long way. Occasionally you will find the restaurant trying to charge you 30 soles for lunch, but when you look closely, you can typically find any of your meals for under 15 soles. Meghan and I found this awesome little veggie place the other night, "el encuentro". We ended up going back for breakfast today it was so good. It was awesome: totally family run, veggie friendly, and they had tp and soap in the bathroom!! Tp and soap together are a rare find in a bathroom here in Peru. I think I'm going to write all of the guide books and tell them to include "el encuentro". This morning, Meghan and I got breakfast for 23 soles together...I had coffee, fresh orange juice, toast, panes, and a cheese and shroom omelet; Megs had a huge fruit salad, yogurt, toast, panes and coffee. Plus they were playing Happy Feet in Spanish....I mean: score!
Cusco has been a lot of fun. We have just walked around and ate food: the two things Megs and I do best. I wish I had more time for some serious hikes, but that will just have to be another trip to Peru.
I also got to meet the infamous Patricia, megs' host mom. She is adorable! Very friendly and sweet and teeny-tiny. I felt like I was going to break her when she gave me a hug. She reminds me of someone, but I can't quite place who.
Panqueques are very big here (aka crepes). And I LOVE me some panqueques! But they use a lot of eggs to make them. Seeing as patricia's vegan, she didnt think she could enjoy such loveliness. Megs and I took care of that idea. The day we went to visit we brought her a recipe for vegan banana pancakes. She was so excited! She wanted to make them right away...which of course we did. Vegan banana pancakes at 3 in the afternoon....only in peru.
~la gringuita
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