We arrived to our hostel in the dark and just rolled into bed. We awoke to discover that not only is there no indoor communal space but all the rooms open onto an outside courtyard. Fine in the summer, which it was last time we were in Cusco, but not so great in the wet, cold winter. Not to mention we are a lot further from the plaza than the website led me to believe. We toyed with the idea of moving but given it's 1 day before New Year's Eve it's unlikely we'll find anything decent at this point so we're staying put. Although any time spent here is pretty much spent under the many layers of blankets in bed. They do have a great roof deck with a view of most of the city though.
We spent the first day doing some exploring and seeing what's changed in Cusco in the past 7 years. Not much in the historical centre it seems although coming in on the bus we noticed a lot of changes. New buildings, shops, a huge hipermercado, better traffice control, any traffic control for that matter. The highways have lines on the road! Not that the drivers pay any attention but I'm sure they'll get there eventually. Progress has come to Peru but as a result, like Bolivia, it's no longer the cheap country it was to travel in 7 years ago. Good for them though, I sure hope the people are seeing the benefits.
We connected up with Maria and Meshud who are here too and went to their hostel for dinner. They sure picked a great neighbourhood, it's not that far from us but what a difference. I wasn't thrilled about walking around there at night but it was good see them. On the way there we walked past San Pedro market and the surrounding streets and it was mayhem. Vendors everywhere selling paraphalnelia for New Years. Everything in bright yellow from hats, scarves, streamers, noise makers & clothing to underwear, which is a tradition on New Years. You're supposed to wear it inside out and change it at midnight. The street was full of vendors selling whole chickens, pigs and other unidentified animals.
New Years Eve day dawned and of course I've been up half the night on the toilet. I've been looking so forward to having dinner in Cusco, there are some great restaurants that serve something other than the usual South American fair and I'm not going to miss this dinner damn it so I popped an antibiotic and hoped things would settle down. We found a restaurant that would let us order off the menu if we reserved for 7pm which was fine with us. Most of the set menus were leaning more towards Peruvian food which I guess if you're only there for a short vacation is probably what you want but I've had my fill of South American food and getting sick from it so it's not what I was looking for. Dinner was as awesome as we'd hoped it would be with just enough of a Peruvian feel to satisfy. So it's now raining and we have 3 hours to kill till midnight. Neither of us is exactly a partier so rather than hitting the bars we decided to head back to our hostel with the intention of returning to the plaza before midnight to join in the madness. We get back and crawl into our respective beds as there is nowhere else to go. The evening wears on and it is becoming more and more evident that's it's unlikely we're going to make it back down. I'm feeling disappointed and slightly ashamed somehow, after all this is why we're here right? Sometime before midnight we hear fireworks and I say we should go out. Josh looks out the window and says I should video this. Video what?? I say. He says there is fireworks going off all over the city. What?? We throw on our coats and head outside. The hostel owner and her family and friends are on the roof deck and they start throwing confetti on our heads, hugging us and wishing us happy new year. I look at my watch and it's exactly midnight. I look out and there is fireworks going off from literally every corner of the city that we can see. I've seen some good fireworks shows but this was something else. Big fireworks too, not the piddly ones like we set off in our backyards at home. The show went on for over 30 minutes and I've never seen anything like it. Maybe we should have made the effort to go the plaza but look what we would have missed. For me it was a great New Years Eve.
From Cusco we're doing the Peru Hop tour which leaves at 10 pm Sunday night. We figure we need somewher to hang out till then so on Saturday we decide to change hostels. We managed to find the place we stayed last trip and we even got the same room. It's a cool place with good living space, no heat unfortunately but at least it's a place to go till the bus comes. There is a choco museo that does workshops so Saturday afternoon we spent 2 hours learning how process cocoa beans and make chocolate. We even got to make our own chocolates and take them home. It was a lot of fun and I would defintely recommend it. It was $30 each but we made Organic chocolates that would cost $20-25 just to buy at home.
Sunday we headed to Pisaq to go to the market. Vendors come in from the countryside to sell their wares along with the regular market. There are tons of textiles, figures, artwork etc, you name it along with the produce and other food. It's a cool little town but very touristy and not worth the trip. The prices are consideraly higher than Cusco for the same stuff. The scenery along the way was worth the drive though and it got us out of the city for a bit.
Tonight we get the Peru Hop bus and head to Puno, Arequipa, Nazca, Huacachina, Paracas and finally to Lima where we hope to meet up with some friends.
