Cusco, Part II

After a nice long interesting bus ride, Wayne and I rolled into Cusco into the hands of a complete jerk of a cab driver. He dropped us off a few blocks away, got pissed b/c I wouldn't pay double the price (that is normal). Ugh.

We got to our place, Hostal Suecia 2, which was a complete nightmare. The woman was completely cold and rude, wouldn't even look me in the eye, and responded to my questions of where was there wifi and where could I buy Machu Picchu tickets with, "I don't know." You don't know?! The room was also a dump, the toilet didn't work, the shower was a nightmare and there was such bad energy there. We decided to take a walk, find dinner, maybe find a new place.

And we did. San Blas Hostal was just 20 soles per night more (2.7 soles=1 USD) and a million times nicer - with a really cute room, wifi, nice location, friendly staff - yes. Yes!

So we went back to our other place, grabbed our bags and nicely, she didn't charge us. We headed back to our new place, unpacked a little, and then grabbed dinner (which of course involved a pisco sour!).

We woke up early, deciding to get the Machu Picchu tickets and the train tickets and then do everything else. We routed our morning run to the train station - which was geared towards locals, with a LONG line and a lot less trains. The schedule did not work for us, and it was confusing so we ran back. At our hostal, the guy told us where to get the entrance tickets and the regular tickets. After a wait in line at the Ministry of Culture, we got two tickets to Machu Picchu, plus the Wayna Picchu tickets. Peru Rail had very expensive tickets ($218 - in USD! - for the both of us) but we got cheaper tickets with Inka Rail ($160 USD).

Then we got the very expensive touristico boleto and totally used it. We went to the Museo Historico Regional (for the Incan art and post-Incan art), the Museum of Contemporary Art, a weaving museum (not included), Qorikancha Museum, and we hiked to nearby Sacsaywaman. Pretty full but good day, which we ended with two pisco sours and Dutch fries at a small Dutch restaurant. Yum. And then pizza which we didn't call pizza but "school cafeteria pizza." Yeah, we're New Yorkers. The next day, we got up early and headed to Ollataytambo for Machu Picchu!