Cuzco: World Capital of Masterful Inca Stonework and Helpless Wide-Eyed Tourists

I arrived in Cuzco late last night after a posh 14 hr bus ride from Arequipa. The chairs were comfy, they served snacks and, best of all, I got to watch 5 movies in English, including: Memoirs of a Geisha, The Hot Chick, some Hillary Duff cheezy thing with lots of singing, The Island with Scarlett Johannsen, and Roman Polanski's Oliver Twist. No cinema for me for a while... I've had my fix and then some!

Today I've been thoroughly enjoying wandering around Cuzco's narrow streets, ogling the architecture along with all the rest of the camera-toting tourists (I had to get the requisite 12-Sided-Inca-Stone-Howdidtheydothat? photograph, above) and just enjoying the weather and the city and the sights and sounds of this ancient Inca imperial capital city. Maybe in 500 years a bunch of rich Peruvian tourists will be wandering around D.C. with the same sense of wonder and awe at the previous imperial glory of this now humble regional backwater town. Hmmm...

Cuzco is a funny town. This morning I ventured a bit out of the center, about 1 km, to buy my bus ticket to Quillabamba tomorrow, and all of a sudden was pretty much back in Bolivia. Dirt sidwalks, trash in the street, stray dogs, vendors selling bananas on the street. But walking back down towards the Plaza de Armas I could watch the city change before my eyes, putting on its veneer of tourist creature comforts and cleanliness... so much so that except for the architecture, some of the streets could be in Europe! It's amazing. I really feel how Cuzco is the undisputed tourist mecca of the Andes. Not that that's a bad thing. Lots of money comes in, lots of people get work, lots of fun to be had... It's just interesting is all.

Maybe also because I'm at the end of my travels and speak spanish and am pretty confident in my ability to get around... or it could just be that I'm in a malicious and snobby mood... but I feel sort of annoyed by all the other tourists packing the streets, fumbling with their Lonely Planet guidebooks, looking bewildered. I'm glad to be leaving Cuzco for Quillabamba tomorrow. When I come back in a week or so, the tourist infrastructure here will seem wonderfully refreshing after mosquito nets and mud and boats up the Urubamba...