Cusco

We took another overnight to Cusco and in the small hours of the morning we drove off in taxi high into the hills to Loki Hostel. We later learnt that the taxi driver ripped us off.

Loki Hostel is located in a beautifully restored 450 year old Peruvian house, with obvious Spanish influences like its central courtyard which backpackers use to relax in the Andean sun.

With tired, drooping eyes we ate at the hostel restaurant. Sleep was nowhere in sight for although we longed for bed, we chose the value dorm to accommodate our diminishing savings. Despite being favourable to our wallets, it wasn't the greatest place if you wanted to relax and rest. We figured we were only going to stick around for a short time, so it shouldn’t matter.

The skies were grey and the climate cold as we wondered through the enchanting old streets with their iconic mix of traditional Spanish architecture and churches amongst surviving Inca monuments and sacred sites. Every which way was a story to tell and even more local indigenous with glorious bright colours parading their garments. 

We found the local food markets and savoured the smells of fresh fruit, flowers and raw meat, exotic coffee and rich dark chocolate, and much more, all of which were local products from this apparently very fertilite land. 

Cusco is and always has been a meeting point for the indigenous to trade and practice their spiritual beliefs. The Inca, aka the nobility of the Inca Empire, called Cusco their capital and it was here the Inka   throne was located, which is why Cusco is so abundant with Incan ruins. Today many indigenous come here for work and money, which they know will be supplied to them because of the tourists. Unlike Arequipa, more homeless have taken to the streets of Cusco in hope that a tourist will put a penny in their pocket. 

Through our hostel we organised the tours we would take over the following few days. With time as our enemy, we had no choice but to take the more expensive, well-planned route to discover the local area.

Knowing we would have to wake early, we went to bed early. Around two in the morning, a loud and most obviously drunk intruder came crashing into our dorm, tripping over people's belongings in his struggle to walk straight. He began to climb up the base of my bunk bed to which I said, "hey, what are you doing?" He crawled up beside me as I lay under the sheets in my pajamas. Again I asked what he was doing! 

He didn't seem to understand what I was saying so I switched to Spanish, now almost yelling at him to get out of my bed. He said, "no, no, no. This is my bed!' and rested his drunken head on my pillow. His feet were black as soot as he has obviously lost his shoes.

My travelling friend turned on the light. The drunk was not going to leave my bed so I had to. To my annoyance, no else seemed to notice my problem, either too drunk themselves from alcohol or with sleep. I slept in the single bed with my friend and in the morning I went to get one of the hostel workers to retrieve my socks from underneath my ex-pillow.

It was such an effort to do this because no one in the room was sleeping in their assigned bed so they had no proof that I was indeed telling the truth. Eventually, they began to nudge him to waken him and ask whether he was in the right bed. He grunted and look down at us with confusion.

The Danish girl on the bottom bunk got out of bed to see what the fuss was about and shouted, "hey, what are you doing? That's not your bed. You're supposed to be over there!" pointing to the bed next to mine. The intruder looked at her with an expressed as to say “whoops!”  and his only comment was "Fantasmo", which doesn't even mean anything (fantasma means ghost in Spanish but I don't know why that would be an appropriate word to say at a time like that...). He merely got down from the bunk only to pass out again in his own bed. Apparently he had been off partying for the past 3 days and apparently he was Australian. 

It was the talk of the town over the next few days but we weren't there to hear it all. We left on an early tourist bus in the direction of Machu Pichu.