Sarah and Lisa's Most Excellent Peruvian Adventure: Day 2 - Chickens, check-in and Cusco

The Pisco Sour. Small but potent.
 Like my mate Lisa.

Today's itinerary: Lima to Cusco

We made it!!  We're here in our fabulous hotel in Cusco, the El Mercado Tunqui, a little chap has just stopped by the room to present us each with a chocolate in a tiny straw basket, and we're about to head down for dinner after a thoroughly pleasant afternoon of chilling out after our journey.  Our heads haven't exploded yet due to the altitude so so far, so good!

The day started at a reasonable time, with the alarm set for 7am, giving us plenty of time to have a leisurely breakfast before heading over the Sky Bridge across the road to the terminal building for our 10.30am flight.  My head felt a little fuzzy this morning - whether due to altitude or the crushingly strong (but free!) pisco sour I'd had at the lobby bar the night before, so I hopped into the shower before breakfast to try and wake myself up a bit.  The shower was one of those that vacillates between fantastically hot or fooking freezing within about a 3 millimeter dial range, so that was a test of fine motor function.  Adding to the fun was the curious fact that the soap appeared to be made out of some type of stone (soapstone?) in that it pretty much refused to lather up.  It eventually gave me just enough suds to just about get clean, but it was more effort than should have strictly been necessary.

First view of the Andes.
Its quite big really.  

Breakfast at the hotel was very good - I had an excellent frittata thing plus some sweet, juicy papaya chunks and cold meat.  I studiously avoided the white bread rolls - after Deflategate yesterday, I need to be a bit more judicious in my carbo-loading choices.  After checking out, we meandered over to the terminal building to check-in for our flight.  Entering the terminal on the second floor, we wandered round a bit trying to find the check-in desk for Peruvian Airlines until this chap very helpfully asked us "check-in?" and, on nodding, pointed us in the right direction.

Except it wasn't.  After walking for another few minutes in the direction he'd pointed us in, it was clear he'd sent us the wrong way, so back we trundled and decided we had to actually go downstairs to where the check-in desks were.  Another 2 guys asked us "check-in?" on the way there - at which point we started to wonder if we'd actually gotten it all wrong and in fact they were offering us somewhere to go for lunch.

God only knows how I managed to refrain from
opening up this overhead bin...

We got downstairs and saw the desks - but then had to exit the terminal building and then re-enter it again 50 yds further down.  Not entirely sure what the rationale was for that (it was a little confusing) but finally we saw the Peruvian Airlines check-in desk so went and queued up to chicken our bags.  It was at this point we discovered that Peruvians obviously enjoy freaking out their foreign visitors as the list of flights on the board above the desk for chicken did not include our Cusco flight!  After a moment or two of "shit! is this a real airline after all and just who did we book our tickets with" panicking, eagle-eyed Lisa spotted that none of the flights listed were domestic ones, only international flights.  Very strange.  And we we finally chicked in with the chap behind the desk, all was fine, our bags got weighed and loaded on and he even switched our seats to give us the exit row with extra leg room.  Nice!

By this stage there was only about 45mins or so before we were due to board, so we just proceeded straight through security, without even pausing to look at the Britt Shop (much to Lisa's chagrin).  The flight itself was pretty smooth and short, only about an hour and a half during which we actually got fed and I discovered the real reason that T-Rex's became extinct all those millions of years ago.

Free food!  In a box!  

More carbs!  Yey!!

Extra legroom seats also required extra arm room.
Thus proving that the real reason T-rex's became
 extinct was that they couldn't reach their
 airplane meals so starved to death.

And, in no time at all, we were landing in Cusco. The approach reminded me of landing in Paro airport in Bhutan 3 years ago, where you are flying into the valley between the craggy mountain ranges that tower up on either side of you.  It was quite cloudy so the view was a little obscured at times, but it was still pretty impressive nonetheless.  And terrifying too given that, come Friday, we'll be hiking our little asses off in those imposing peaks!

Here comes the tea!  Just arrived and relaxing
in the courtyard of our hotel

As you'd expect, the airport itself is tiny with only a single baggage carousel, which made it easier to guess where our bags were going to come out.  It was stuffed full of tour operator desks, porters with metal trolley carts and taxi drivers looking for their pick-up so had a nicely chaotic feel.  We'd arranged a transfer with our hotel in Cusco (who is also affiliated with Mountain Lodges of Peru, the tour operator who is running our trip) which made it easy and within no time our bags were out, we met our driver and we were on our way!   The drive to our hotel was only about 20 mins or so and we drove past some incredible buildings and monuments.  I'll blog more about those over the next couple of days as we explore Cusco before leaving on Friday to start our hike.  Our hotel is located in the old part of town, which is the main tourist area with lots of fancy hotels, restaurants and plenty of markets and bazaars in which to buy all the alpaca-themed gifts you could ever wish for.

We were met at the hotel by a very friendly chap who took our bags up to our room for us and first offered us (at last!) the famous coca tea!  Apparently this elixir is going to save us from altitude sickness, so everyone has been strongly encouraging us to stay well-hydrated, avoid alcohol and drink plenty of coca tea!  Now, I think the name is a bit misleading cos I don't think it has cocaine in it, but I think it does have a sh*tload of caffeine in it, so its the diuretic effect that apparently makes it effective for altitude sickness.  I'll write more about that tomorrow (I am feeling a bit space-cadety) as well as the wonderful effects of the Diamox that we're taking to also offset the altitude.  I'm very glad we decided to come here a few days early ahead of our hike - just taking the stairs up to our room left us both feeling a bit winded and our hearts pounding, so it will be good to have fully acclimatized before starting CrazyHike proper on Friday.

Coca tea - our beverage saviour!

For now, its almost 10pm and I am fading fast, so I will leave you with the few pictures that I've taken so far of our hotel and our immediate surroundings.  Tomorrow the plan is to have an easy day ambling around Cusco, maybe checking out a few museums (the chocolate museum!) and definitely checking out some of the amazing restaurants this town is known for!  Huzzah for vacations!

Overlooking the rooftops of Cusco from the balcony of our room

Chez Lisa and Sarah

Those alpaca blankets are coming home with me....

View looking down into the hotel's courtyard and out beyond to
the mountain range

Lunch - stuffed peppers and a traditional corn
soup.  Both were excellent.

Relaxing by the fire after dinner for a quick
game of Spite and Malice.  Current score:
Lisa 2, Sarah 1. 

Eclectic decor - alpaca heads?

The bar of the hotel - nice and dim and chilled out,
perfect for 2 weary travelers to relax.