8.00AM Thursday
Well, what now?
I’m sitting here on the Stone steps of the main square plaza, there’s a beautiful gothic catholic church to my left, the roofs of all the buildings lining the square are that beautiful red tiled classic Spanish colonial architecture and with the light rain drops falling from the misty clouds that hug the majestic mountains, I could almost be forgiven for thinking I’m in a rich European village. Groups of municipal cleaners in Blue uniforms scour about, tourists occasionally wander by sometimes in big goofy groups waiting for buses or sometimes just wandering around in solitude taking in the mobile vendors trying to sell them anything from photos to artwork to beanies.
I just talked to one of them, a young guy, maybe twenty or so. He was selling a box full of photos of typical Peruvian tourist imagery. I asked him how much he usually sells them and he told me it depends on the gringo. He didn’t try to sell any to me after I’d explained my money situation. But he did suggest I could be doing the same if I spend 40 Soles on a box of postcards then make my money back from sales. He would be working till about 11 and then going to his studies as a guia (guide). He left me on those cold steps to keep working and I saw him try and fail with a few of the passing tourists before disappearing to another part of the square.
I was alone again with 30 Soles in my pocket, no place to sleep in the cold high altitude of Cusco, Peru. I’m sure everyone is here to see Machupichu, it looks like the whole town was built for people to go visit it. I sat there feeling dejected almost one day in Peru and everything had gone wrong.
When I went to cross the border out of Bolivia I discovered much to my horror that the asshole Bolivian immigration officer on the Argentinean frontier hadn’t stamped my passport. This meant I had two options, have my passport confiscated and have to return to La Paz to retrieve it or pay 150 Bs (Just under $20US) to continue no problems. Either way I’d have to pay. I paid with my last twenty then bitterly went to the small currency exchange outside the migration office to change my 80 or so Bolivianos into the Peruvian currency of Soles. With just under 40 Soles I walked to the Peruvian border and went through with no problems. Just as at the Bolivian border I happened to be processed at the same time as a bus load of tourists which made me feel more inadequate and embarrassed. At one point without realizing my bag was completely open and my camera along with all the other useless shit I had jammed into there was about to fall out all over the floor of the Peruvian migration office and it was only the luck of a tall frizzy blonde haired American guy that alerted me.
“Wouldn’t be the worst thing that’s happened to me today” I said bitterly.
So on the Peruvian side of the border was their bus to Puno (which there was no way I could afford) and a dodgy group of men standing around tiny motor taxies and micros. All did their best to haggle me but I went first to check on a map to see exactly where we were and where Puno was. One guy wanted 7 soles for a micro to Puno and another in the motor taxi said he could take me for 1. The guy of course ripped me off and only took me to the next town and told me it was Puno. While in this boring town I met a Peruvian/Chilean artesano couple in the street. Marco and Paloma, were very friendly and told me that they knew a place in Cusco, some house of a Señora Julia, which I could stay in with other artesanos and musicians for as little as 3 soles. I got directions then left for a 5 sol bus to Puno. 6 soles in total, so I had saved a sol despite getting ripped off.
Once in Puno, like what the artesanos had said I would wait to catch the latest bus I could for 10 soles to Cusco and spend the dinner hour trying to play some guitar. I got stared at in Puno almost in the same way people used to stare at me in Santiago, but I was weary of the tourist savvy Peruvians who would see me as an excuse to make a quick buck. After getting tired with my big bags I sat down and before long met a couple of travelers from Argentina. With advice of some of the locals we walked down to a different bus terminal where my bus to Cusco and their bus would actually be leaving. Such is the nature of some of the vendors here that at the first bus terminal where I got dropped off a guy would have gladly sold me a ticket to Cusco knowing that the bus was going somewhere else. I haggled my way down for a ticket from 15 to 10 Soles that left a little early at 8.30pm for getting much work due.
Walked around with the two guys, ate some fairly crap vegetarian food before having to return to the bus terminal. It was here when trying to buy a ticket for use of the terminal that I found out that I was given a fake 1 Sol coin. A fake fucking coin! From the currency exchange! What the hell is the point of counterfeiting a coin? A Sol no less which aint worth shit!
While waiting for the bus a British girl started speaking to me. She recognized me from both the border and from Copacabana and it was her boyfriend who had helped me with my bag in the Peruvian migration office. She was very sweet with me and didn’t make me feel stupid when I explained to her my money problems. Her boyfriend, the American guy, spoke fluent Spanish as he’d lived in Argentina for a year and ended up doing most of the speaking for them. Along with them was a French couple. I was amazed to find that my seat was in the fancy downstairs compartment of the bus with the other travelers so I had a great time chatting and marveling at the electrical storm over Puno. But the good times were short lived, at the first major stop, it turned out the guy from the bus had told me wrong. I was in fact in the crap seats upstairs right down the back wedged between a family and a window. My glimpse of friendship and fun was gone and I did my best to just to try to get to sleep as quickly as possible in the horridly uncomfortable seats.
When we arrived at Cusco in the morning today I first tried to sleep on the bus a little, then tried to catch up with my new friends but on walking in the terminal and getting haggled aggressively by people trying to sell us on hostels and taxies I aggressively told them to fuck off. I wasn’t in the mood. The British/American couple had a group of at least 15 of these people around them and they were going through the different offers and thinking it through. I was so frustrated so I left to try and find the San Blass plaza that the artesanos had told me about yesterday. I had no idea where I was going but the main direction was as far away from the terminal as possible. The taxi drivers were fucking aggressive in trying to get me into their cars no matter how many times I said no. As I walked I tried to ask a woman for directions and she just ignored me. Eventually I found some men who told me which way to walk and how far it was. And it was far, a hard walk all uphill at barely 7 in the morning.
When I got to the plaza, I then spent the next half an hour looking for this casa of Señora Julia. With the help of some friendly passerbys I found it. The guy who answered the door, Ralph was very helpful (explaining things in English) and showed me into the courtyard where the little apartments were and let me put my guitar and big bags under a staircase. I then went to find the actual house of Señora Julia to ask if she had a room available. She said no but to check back later in the day. So here I am in this plaza, with no money, in a city that’s out of the way in terms of trying to get to Colombia. What now?
–
-–
8pm in the evening
Well the rest of the day has turned out to be interesting. While sitting in that plaza on that grey morning an old fella dressed in a black cowboy hat, leather jacket and jeans with what looked like crocodile skin boots was making a call to Santiago on the pay phone nearby. After trying a couple of times with the operator he got through and I heard him shout “Mama!”. Somehow I knew when I caught first glimpse of this guy that I was gonna end up talking to him and sure enough after he got off the phone he stood next to where I was sitting and said hello. From the get go we got on to taking. He was Peruviano but spoke good English. He was a musician who had travelled the world playing in the street or in bands and had for two years lived in New Zealand. We talked about Australia of which he’d been to Sydney but didn’t like it because of its lack of culture. It was just trying to be British or American he told me and the only real culture was that of the Aborigines. All of which I agreed with, especially after travelling Latin America and speaking to people about what they know about Australia. It wasn’t meat pies or cricket.
There was a poor indigenous woman with a child who was selling a little plate of potato and eggs with a green chilly sauce so the Peruvian man invited me and another guy a plate. When he found out the woman was only charging 50 cents, he immediately insisted on paying at least double, he told me that it broke his heart to see his own people so poor struggling like this woman who was undercharging herself by 50 cents if compared to the prices in the cheap market. Especially given that this was not the poor area but the obscenely wealthy tourist beat. The Peruvian man was supposed to meet a woman here at 8.30am but came twenty minutes late and it appeared she wasn’t there. “I was here for the nice pussy you know” but his gordita hadn’t showed up. So after waiting five more minutes we went for a walk into the market, there he bought me a delicious and cheap fruit juice and then a giant chicken soup (with free range chicken).
It turned out the Peruvian was very much a DIY musician in every sense. He knew his way around a studio and recorded his own music and as the day was starting to brighten up we walked through the busy market district towards one of the many photocopy/printing sheds. But first a post brunch toilet stop, I waited outside and had every manner of hawker try to sell mobile phones which I tried to assure the young boy that was the last fucking thing in the world I wanted! I learned later that they weren’t selling the phones but the calls. You could use the credit on their phones to call people. We found a shed that housed a few little shop stalls for photocopies and printing and the Peruvian went off to print out the CD and album covers while I waited.
Afterwards while walking back to the plaza he told me a little of the history of Cusco. Apparently in the 80’s the economy of Cusco was in turmoil, lots of political turmoil. Then in the early 90s the regeneration began with a full fledged grab for the tourist dollar and opening up of Machupichu. Hence you have the Cusco of today, a very wealthy looking town centre heavily catered towards foreigners. This was something he certainly wasn’t happy with believing that the locals were getting pushed out of their own places and all of the so called funds from the tourist industry didn’t go to them anyways. It is true that the company that runs Machupichu is from Chile, while many other conglomerates and foreign businesses run a lot of restaurants and bars here. I could sense this undercurrent of negativity myself in the way people were so aggressive in trying to sell things to tourists, it seems the economy depends on it. Another interesting thing the cowboy mentioned was that there were a lot of secret police here in Cusco that quietly monitored things, no trouble making in front of the tourists, to keep the ‘peace’. Compared to Bolivia there’s barely any visible police here but given this is Peru I wouldn’t at all be surprised by this, but his assertion was put into doubt when he saw what was obviously a tourist taking photos and claimed she was secret police. At this point I suddenly started having doubts wondering whether this guy was paranoid or not.
We left to go to his house which was right near Señora Julia’s house, so I asked her if she had the room available. After a bit of bargaining she let me have the room for five soles per night (on the condition that I was not to tell her son) and said it would be ready by 5pm that afternoon. With a place to stay now cool I went with the cowboy to his daughter’s school then to a vegetarian restaurant for lunch. His daughter is a cheeky little girl and can even speak a little English from living with her father in New Zealand. I got invited yet another meal which I could barely finish, his daughter refused to eat and the cowboy ended up finishing all the plates. We returned to his house where he said he’ll help me with playing in some of the restaurants or bars, just going through some of the songs I knew to help me earn some desperately needed money. We jammed a little bit between him washing all his daughter’s clothes then I left to return to the house where I’d be staying.
This place with ‘Alvarez’ written on the blue door, was not exactly a house but was the property of Señora Julia who lived in her own house close by. When walking inside the courtyard with two storey dwellings on either side housing about six or seven rooms. It’s a nice little place. Two outdoor toilets/showers, lots of space to wash and hang up clothes and the residents are all musicians or artists or working in the bars where the bands play so it’s a good vibe. I was warned earlier in the day that some of the previous residents even from the same day had been quite dodgy alcoholics that smashed shit a lot but it seems they’re gone. I have a room to myself on the second level with a good view of course, lots of space. Too much in fact since I don’t have a bed or any furniture, just my lonely little sleeping bag with its little roll out sleeping mat, my backpack with my thoughts and my trusty ol’ geetar.
One of the guys downstairs who works in a bar called Kamikaze introduced me to a small band that share the room next to mine and I sat in on their practice as they ran through what sounded like Peruvian folk/rock pop songs. The guy from Kamikaze also said to come down a bit later tonight with my guitar and maybe play some tunes so I enthusiastically said yeah why not. Now I chill in my new empty clean room and relax.
