Our First Major Delay

Saturday 13 January

We struggled out of bed before 04.30 and splashed our faces – no time for a shower this morning – before meeting Beatriz and Afonso just after 05.00. They delivered us to Arequippa airport in plenty of time for the 06.10 plane to Cusco – just a thirty minute flight. Beatriz already had the boarding cards printed, so we just had to weigh in our luggage - with our fingers crossed again – but we needn’t have worried, they took it without any problems - before going through security and finding our boarding gate. It was sad to say “goodbye” to Beatriz as she had been a wonderful guide, very informative and helpful, especially when I was poorly. We can only hope that the rest of our guides will be half as good.

In the airport we were amazed at the number of people waiting for this plane, but then found out it was continuing on to Lima. We were due to board at 05.40, but at that time there was an announcement to say that due to the extremely bad weather in Cusco, the plane would be delayed. Cusco airport was hoping to open at 08.00 and the new expected take off time would be 08.10. There were a lot of “oohs”, and people began panicking about connecting flights – Lima is the only international airport in Peru, so many were going through Lima. We settled down for the wait, and I used the time to catch up on making a few notes about the days I had missed on the blog. At 08.00 we were still sitting in the airport lounge and soon after, one of the airport staff came and changed the departure announcement board for our flight to 09.10. More oohs. One flight to Lima had taken off soon after our original departure time, and now another was due to leave in ten minutes. Quite a few of the passengers waiting for our flight, seemed to change their tickets and catch this other plane – perhaps they didn’t have any luggage stowed on our aircraft or it was booked straight through to their final destination, and they just hoped it caught up.

We continued sitting in the lounge and 09.10 arrived before another announcement that there would be a further delay of an hour. Just before 10.00 we heard that the plane would take off as soon as possible and boarding would start in a few minutes. We were in the air by about 10.30 for what seemed like a very short hop – five minutes to get up in the air and twenty minutes to land.

At Cusco we met Daniel, who was our courier to the hotel. We booked in and were shown to a dingy cell of a room, on what was really the lower ground floor – or basement! The reception is down a flight of stairs from the road, and the room was on this level. It had a window, but very little light filtered in from above, so we had to have the lights on all the time. We probably should have asked to change rooms, but we needed to find a bank before they closed at 12.00, as the exchange rate in the hotel was exceptionally poor – twenty soles more at the banks and exchange houses.

It was then lunch time and we chose a restaurant near the hotel, that sold pizza (for me) and pasta (for Colin) – wrong – no pizzas today - so we both ended up with pasta. It was funny to watch the restaurant fill up, and see most of the people ask for pizza! - and then have to reconsult the menu. We then went back to the hotel for an hour or so, while I blogged some more (I needed to catch up on notes at least), and then we went out to explore the city. Cusco is an old Spanish style city, with a large central square where the Cathedral dominates one whole side. There were two other churches on the square – apparently there are over 40 catholic churches in the city in tota. There are also loads of restaurants, all with touts outside with cards, trying to tempt you inside – they obviously get commission if they are successful – we took several cards, but had been recommended to the Andean Grill by both Jorge from Lima and Daniel. The tout’s name for this restaurant was Flor, a large Peruvian lady with a big smile. All the restaurants seemed to offer the same fare – with lots more guinea pig too. There were the usual souvenir shops and silver jewelers in between – the silver purportedly coming from the local mines. The centre of the square had small formal gardens, around a large fountain. There were two flags fluttering in the gentle afternoon breeze.

We wandered round the smaller streets, off the square and found other squares with tall fountains and trees. Most of the streets are very straight and narrow, with buildings almost seeming to touch in some places, as they leaned outwards. These too contained more small cafes and eateries – which were obviously popular with the hundreds of backpackers here.

We went back to the hotel, changed and went out again almost immediately – it was about 19.30 by now and just beginning to get dark. We made our way back to the Andean Grill, which was situated upstairs above other restaurants, with balconies overlooking the square – the tables here were already full, so we were seated at the side where we could see through the windows as all the buildings were floodlight as darkness fell. It was very pretty – a bit like “wonderland”. We weren’t exactly starving, so we just had main courses – a T-bone steak for Colin, with “ba-ked” potatoes and a red onion and garlic salad (a local accompaniment), while for me, beef skewers with roasted mixed vegetables. With a couple of glasses of red wine the meal was delicious. It was then time to return to the cell and ready ourselves for our tour tomorrow – we were now feeling quite tired after our early morning call. The square was still full of people milling around or sitting on the seats and pavement kerbs – and this was definitely time to beware of pickpockets!