Cusco
Posted: Fri Jun 04, 2010 4:40 pm
One member thought some comments on travel might be appreciated. Here is the first shot.
If you go to Cusco, you will go thru Lima, Peru. I just heard about something called Spirit Airlines. We are going to try that. I think it is like Costco in that you have to be a member, but roundtrip from LAX is about $350. Typically flights are overnight and arrive in the early morning. Lima generally is EST, so you might have that time change to deal with also. Peru deals in $100 for larger purchases and soles for general stuff. The money exchange places in the US will bend you over in public. If that is not your thing, wait until you get to the Lima airport to change money. You pay a small premium there, but it doesn't seem too bad to me. I have pants with pockets sewn on the inside of the leg. Money and credit cards go there. I like to travel with in a long sleeve cotton shirt that is NOT tucked into my pants. I always put my wallet in a front pants pocket. A lesson from another story.
You have a choice of going into Lima to recuperate. If you do and want to pay less money, go out past the initial barrage of taxi drivers indoors, go out the door and go to the second concrete island and start dealing there. You might pay 25-35 soles (in rough numbers, for a decade it has been about 3 soles (soul-ez) to the dollar. Be sure to use a taxi driver who parks in the airport. It is 5 or 10 soles cheaper to use one outside, but they have not been vetted. We always stay in the Miraflores district. There are good restaurants, hotels and a really nice park close to the Hotel Jose Pardo that often has band concerts and artists displaying their colorful work. I enjoyed most the Gold Museum and the Pre-Columbian Erotic Art Museum.
If you want to go directly to Cusco, there are several airlines. You can make reservations on LAN and again get bent over or you might try something like Peruvian Airlines. I believe you can purchase tickets online from overseas with VISA/MasterCard for a fraction of the cost of LAN. If you are the kind that likes to pay a premium for security, go ahead and do everything ahead of time. If not, don't sweat it. There are at least three airlines flying into Cusco To go to the national flights section, walk out the exit from international, turn left and follow the building around to long "front" side. At the far end you enter and there will be airline kiosks on the right wall for all three airlines. There always are empty seats. If you are really adventurous, Cusco connects also by bus from Lima, Arequipa and Juliaca (Puno). There is train service to Puno.
If you are a loose person, don't sweat the pre-arranged packaged tours. All the nooks and crannies of Cusco are full of tour operators. It is amazing. The economy is build out of sucking money from tourists. No tourist goes unsucked. You can find tours and opportunities every time you turn around.
Many places in the world I give 3 or 4 days. You could easily fill a week at Cusco, depending what your likes and physical abilities are. Remember that Cusco is at about 3,400 meters and tours routinely take you to 4,000 meters. Have a jacket. Buy an altitude sickness pill (after reading all the precautions) called Sorochi and start taking one when you leave Lima. In Cusco you can go to a pharmacy and buy a small bottle of oxygen which really helped wifie-poo. Otherwise, please try not to vomit on the sidewalk.
There are a bunch of museums in Cusco if that is your thing. You can fill a day or two with those. It also is a bit of an action center with bungee jumping, white water boating, hiking, mountain climbing, etc. There are all kinds of tours of the area.
I happen to enjoy the things that teach you to appreciate the mental abilities of Indians 500 years ago. At Pisaq you can see their experimental farm where they build terraces going way up a mountain. They brought food plants from the jungle and each year moved them up a terrace to a higher elevation. They brought food plants from the mountains and each year moved them down a terrace. Ultimately the idea was to see if they could widen the climates ranges for the food sources. Saqsaywaman is the fortress where huge rocks up to 150 tons were carved into geometric shapes to fit perfectly with adjacent rocks. I can appreciate the pyramids, Nasca lines etc, while understanding how those were done. I have no idea how they cut and fitted huge blocks so perfectly there. None.
And, of course there is Machu Picchu. It is the most famous and I can appreciate it. It is a very long day to go there. Part of the trip now is by bus, part by train. We left the hotel at 7 AM and got back at 11:15 PM. You get off the train at Aguas Calientes. You can stay there overnight in a very, very expensive hotel room if you like. Aguas Calientes lookes like a Martian mining town in a Schwartzenegger action movie long the main drag. But find your way a block away from the train and there is a really neat and clean street with lots of restaurants and people. I was really surprised how nice it looks in that area.
At every stop you will face people wanting to sell you the colorful Andean artisenal stuff. There will be opportunities all thru the trip to buy. Don't shoot your wad the first day and don't buy so much that it becomes a luggage issue. I really like their stuff, but too much just causes problems.
Hope this is of interest to somebody.
If you go to Cusco, you will go thru Lima, Peru. I just heard about something called Spirit Airlines. We are going to try that. I think it is like Costco in that you have to be a member, but roundtrip from LAX is about $350. Typically flights are overnight and arrive in the early morning. Lima generally is EST, so you might have that time change to deal with also. Peru deals in $100 for larger purchases and soles for general stuff. The money exchange places in the US will bend you over in public. If that is not your thing, wait until you get to the Lima airport to change money. You pay a small premium there, but it doesn't seem too bad to me. I have pants with pockets sewn on the inside of the leg. Money and credit cards go there. I like to travel with in a long sleeve cotton shirt that is NOT tucked into my pants. I always put my wallet in a front pants pocket. A lesson from another story.
You have a choice of going into Lima to recuperate. If you do and want to pay less money, go out past the initial barrage of taxi drivers indoors, go out the door and go to the second concrete island and start dealing there. You might pay 25-35 soles (in rough numbers, for a decade it has been about 3 soles (soul-ez) to the dollar. Be sure to use a taxi driver who parks in the airport. It is 5 or 10 soles cheaper to use one outside, but they have not been vetted. We always stay in the Miraflores district. There are good restaurants, hotels and a really nice park close to the Hotel Jose Pardo that often has band concerts and artists displaying their colorful work. I enjoyed most the Gold Museum and the Pre-Columbian Erotic Art Museum.
If you want to go directly to Cusco, there are several airlines. You can make reservations on LAN and again get bent over or you might try something like Peruvian Airlines. I believe you can purchase tickets online from overseas with VISA/MasterCard for a fraction of the cost of LAN. If you are the kind that likes to pay a premium for security, go ahead and do everything ahead of time. If not, don't sweat it. There are at least three airlines flying into Cusco To go to the national flights section, walk out the exit from international, turn left and follow the building around to long "front" side. At the far end you enter and there will be airline kiosks on the right wall for all three airlines. There always are empty seats. If you are really adventurous, Cusco connects also by bus from Lima, Arequipa and Juliaca (Puno). There is train service to Puno.
If you are a loose person, don't sweat the pre-arranged packaged tours. All the nooks and crannies of Cusco are full of tour operators. It is amazing. The economy is build out of sucking money from tourists. No tourist goes unsucked. You can find tours and opportunities every time you turn around.
Many places in the world I give 3 or 4 days. You could easily fill a week at Cusco, depending what your likes and physical abilities are. Remember that Cusco is at about 3,400 meters and tours routinely take you to 4,000 meters. Have a jacket. Buy an altitude sickness pill (after reading all the precautions) called Sorochi and start taking one when you leave Lima. In Cusco you can go to a pharmacy and buy a small bottle of oxygen which really helped wifie-poo. Otherwise, please try not to vomit on the sidewalk.
There are a bunch of museums in Cusco if that is your thing. You can fill a day or two with those. It also is a bit of an action center with bungee jumping, white water boating, hiking, mountain climbing, etc. There are all kinds of tours of the area.
I happen to enjoy the things that teach you to appreciate the mental abilities of Indians 500 years ago. At Pisaq you can see their experimental farm where they build terraces going way up a mountain. They brought food plants from the jungle and each year moved them up a terrace to a higher elevation. They brought food plants from the mountains and each year moved them down a terrace. Ultimately the idea was to see if they could widen the climates ranges for the food sources. Saqsaywaman is the fortress where huge rocks up to 150 tons were carved into geometric shapes to fit perfectly with adjacent rocks. I can appreciate the pyramids, Nasca lines etc, while understanding how those were done. I have no idea how they cut and fitted huge blocks so perfectly there. None.
And, of course there is Machu Picchu. It is the most famous and I can appreciate it. It is a very long day to go there. Part of the trip now is by bus, part by train. We left the hotel at 7 AM and got back at 11:15 PM. You get off the train at Aguas Calientes. You can stay there overnight in a very, very expensive hotel room if you like. Aguas Calientes lookes like a Martian mining town in a Schwartzenegger action movie long the main drag. But find your way a block away from the train and there is a really neat and clean street with lots of restaurants and people. I was really surprised how nice it looks in that area.
At every stop you will face people wanting to sell you the colorful Andean artisenal stuff. There will be opportunities all thru the trip to buy. Don't shoot your wad the first day and don't buy so much that it becomes a luggage issue. I really like their stuff, but too much just causes problems.
Hope this is of interest to somebody.