Back to Cusco

From the beach we overnight bused it back to Quito and then onto to Guayaquil, Ecuador's largest city.  Arriving early in the morning - the bloody bus didn’t go to the central bus station, but to some small station exclusive to the company we had travelled with.  Of course this wasn’t on the map in our trusty lonely planet, so we were once again reliant upon my language skills.  Safe to say we got dropped off God knows where, but it certainly wasn’t the central bus.  The spoken worked have failed me, I resorted to the tried and tested -wonder about hoping you might recognised something method.  Yet again this proved more successful than the talking Spanish badly method, and I managed to stumble on the most enormous bus station come shopping mall we’d seen yet.

I strolled back to collect the baggage, and with Kirsty in tow, headed back to the bus station, during which, Kirsty who hadn’t been further than the pavement where we’d been dropped, tried to tell me we were going the wrong way...

The Mall/bus terminal was super westernised, replete with familiar fast food outlets and chain stores.  It’s saving grace was that it had good coffee and we were able to buy a chess set.

We travelled back to Peru on another overnight bus, which was smooth driving save for the 2 hour wait at the brand new, gargantuan concrete border post - big enough to process hundreds, but only staffed with on inept official.

Brief stop in Lima, for a stay in the Fly Dog and steak sandwich, before heading out on another monster over-nighter to Cusco.  This time Kirsty had finally persuaded me to splash out and go first class.  This meant we rode in voluminous leather sofa seats on the bottom of bus (Plebs and ordinary travellers must travel “semi cama” on the first floor).  As first class travellers, we were served first and even given our own headphones.

We rode into Cusco as the sun rose and I was once again amazed by how much it had grown since the last time I visited.  We rode a taxi to centre and tried to get a room at a hostel up the hill from the main square.  They were full, so our taxi driver offered to take us to another place that he knew called “Casa Grande”.  It was more expensive, but he got us some kind of bad boy taxi driver discount.  As we entered, it seemed familiar, I went though into the courtyard and recognised it as the place I had stayed 10 years ago with the boys.  I told the owner, who seemed delighted, but not enough to give us  a further discount unfortunately.

In the afternoon, we wandered out into Cusco and were struck by just how much of an international tourist island the place is.  Gringoes everywhere, including loads more OAGs (Old Age Gringoes) the last time I’d visited.  You can’t walk around the central square without being hassled to eat in the restaurants and cafe, it was ever thus, but now there are dozens of young women offering “massages” - who knows what type -we declined politely.

Outside the orbit of the Plaza de Armes the meticulously presented tourist town extends for a few streets before the falling away into the less manicured sprawl of the generic Peruvian city - all noise and traffic.