Viaje a Cuzco

Majestic mounts my mind when mountains come to view. Note the phalanx of bikers on the bottom right of the expanded view.

Four hours supposedly gets one from Abancay to Cuzco on an express bus. This Saturday, however, the express was slowed a little by a careening car that couldn't cut it on the second switchback we come upon coming out of Abancay.

Sure enough, a dude in a little Toyota hit us on the driver's side right behind the front wheel. The bus suffered less visible damage than the compact, and the delay only added half an hour. That´s the good news. The bad news is that the driver tried to make it up in the mountains. Passing trucks on curves. Ay carumba.


This is my window, with a AA battery in place for perspective, on the four-hour ride to Cuzco.

Thought I was getting a break when I bought my ticket for the trip, days in advance. They let you pick your seat. On the coach bus from Nazca to Abancay, the seats were all on the second floor, with the front four seats getting their own big front windshield, above the driver. On the first floor were the driver, baggage, freight and motor. So, in Abancay, I was one of the first to get a ticket, and picked the front right window.

Different bus. Different view.

This bus puts everybody on the same level, with the front row seats behind the driver´s compartment, complete with curtain blocking any front-window view. There was a larger window on the side, but it was covered with a black screen, as around some rear-view mirrors. So, the little window pictured was all I got for four hours. Mountains, little villages, a steer in the middle of the state highway. Steep cliffs. All kinds of stuff. Could I get a picture? Ha. Frustration? I leave it to your fertile imaginations.

The steeple of a 400-year-old church towers over the rooftops of Cuzco, striving for theological dominance with the surrounding mountains.

Initial impressions of Cuzco involve mountains, incredible altitude -- 10,800 feet above sea level, in the middle of the city -- heavy traffic in the city center, and a blatant tourism industry. Most of what I read about Cuzco painted a picture of modernity running into history everywhere you go here, creating a sweetness and light that will satisfy the most intrepid traveler.

What you really get is a life-and-death, yin and yang, Celtic-snake, love-hate struggle between desperate poverty and plush, ripe tourists.

The tourists are everywhere. Mostly white, largely European. There are parts of Cuzco where you can walk for a full block or two and see no one else but anglos. It´s bizarre. Loads of punk kids with super cool dreadlocks. Loads of ignoramuses besotted with cash. Cameras everywhere.

This alley was once an Incan street, now mostly redone but in the same place and dimensions as the the original, in the swanky San Blas part of Cuzco.

It´s really weird. There are native Indians, descendants of Incan and other tribes, many of whom speak Quechua, a language which predates the Incas. They dress in colorful, tribal clothes. They are obviously poor and sell anything. One old lady trots a llama in every day, and you best not take a pic of them without paying. She WILL kick your ass.

Kids as young as 8 besiege you, flogging paintings, sculptures, jewelry, pottery, postcards, fruit. You name it. Shoe shine boys in broken English, pleeze meester -- for my deener. Touts outside of restaurants, trying to steer you in. Everywhere you go in the city center, a hand is out. This is four times worse than anyplace I´ve seen in Chicago, New York, Washington, Dublin.

The natives put a good face on it, as they love the money but hate the rich folk they have to pry it from. The tourists don´t put as good a face on it, as they think it´s cute that an 8-year-old boy is shining their shoes but wish he didn´t smell so bad, and often say so out loud.

The hardest part to swallow is the vast numbers of well-off folks enjoying their wealth among so many poor folk. It wouldn´t really be that different if you put 10,000 tourists and a dozen swank hotels, a few upscale shops and a french restaurant smack in the middle of East St. Louis, the west side of Chicago, South Central L.A., Ballymun in Dublin.

Next: Meet mi familia.