We were up at a reasonable hour to go and buy a tourist ticket for the sites in and around Cusco, but in a pattern that seems set to repeat we decided against it – due in part to prices rising fast when compared to our 10-year-old guidebook (courtesy of my workmate Ingela).
Some of the sites were still available separately, so we visited the Inca Museum then decided we wanted to be out in the sun instead enjoying the scenery. After a modest omelette back at the ranch, we ventured out to try and track down the train station for tickets to the mythical “local train” to Machu Picchu, and to work out what our next steps would be.
We got lost on the way to the relevant train station – and when we found it it was closed and looked like it had been for decades, so we resigned ourselves to joining the tourist hordes. That evening we were feeling like we needed a little relief, and so went out on the town briefly ( always difficult to keep up at 3000 metres above sea level) to a great little bar in the trendy San Blas area, where we were unfortunately the only punters.
The band ‘s singer was a real character, and he had got his friends who ran the venue to record a recent National Geographic tv piece on Inca history, in which he had a starring role. When he appeared the staff in the venue went crazy, especially as he introduced a romantic and completely unnecessary subtext of flirtation into the historical piece which he dubbed Inca Porn. We headed back home, stopping off to hear a great band of Argentian buskers, finally stumbling on a proper folklorica band in a divey pub where we were the only gringos.
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