I thought God was free!???

Grand Master, Cusco Peru
Originally uploaded by wapstar.

Not much was accomplished today. First thing in the morning we booked a trip to Machu Picchu. The Peruvian government has changed regulations in regards to seeing this magnificent archaeological site, which is good for the site but bad for tourists. To get there, you have to hike with an organized tour, take a train, or a bus from Aguas Calientes. We debated doing the hike (long since booked out, as there is a daily maximum limit, but many places are advertising spaces) but decided our health is more important. In fact, there are several reasons not to do the hike. 1)it´s WAY overpriced!; 2)the fees you do pay go to the tour operators and not to the locals or to conservation of the trail and site; 3)we hate to encourage the government to continue to rip tourists off; 4)the altitude is pretty harsh on us, and who knows how we would go, and in the worst-case scenario, it´s too high up for a helicopter rescue (my sister and her husband were in a pretty bad state when they hiked the trail a few years ago, a nightmare we all choose to forget). So, we chose to go by bus, because you can leave from Aguas Calientes around 6:00 am and have a decent amount of time at the site before all of the day trip people arrive. But the only way to get to Aguas Calientes is by train. And tourists are not longer allowed to take the local train, they have to take the tourist train at about 1000x the price. And of course they are all nearly booked up. So we managed to find a deal leaving on the 27th. We were happy to find something at least, but not too excited about being stuck in Cusco for the next 2 days.

After arranging our travels, we bought some tamales from a lady on the steps of one of the alleys and ate them on the fountain in the plaza. We then treated ourselves to a 'real' latte at a cafe on the plaza and spent the rest of the afternoon wandering up the alleys away from the plaza. We 'hiked' up to La Iglesia de San Cristobal and sat on a bench enjoying the views from our height over the city. I say 'hiked' because it wasn't a very long walk, but because of the altitude we get winded pretty quickly (as does almost everyone else, we've noticed). We then got the idea to continue walking up to Cristo Blanco, a huge statue of Jesus Cristo sitting on top of the mountain overlooking the city. We were nearly almost there anyway. We walked along the road until we reached a stairway that appeared to lead up to where we wanted to be. But to use this path required that we have a Boleto Touristico, a tourist ticket necessary to enter nearly every church, museum and archaeological site in and around Cusco. Since they are about $35AU and we weren't too keen on seeing most of the things in Cusco, we didn't buy one. So, even though we protested that 'Jesus Cristo es para todos las personas del mundo' we still had to pay to walk up the path. We decided not to. We could have walked around along the road, but this probably would have taken at least an hour or two, and we still didn't know if we'd be stopped at some point without a tourist ticket.

So, back down the hill we went, where we had an afternoon snack of yogurt and granola/muesli and a hot drink before heading to our cheap beer place. We had some cold beer and played some cards, then headed back to the same cheap Mexican restaurant for dinner. This time we were treated to a live 6 person Andean band while we ate. They are so talented and can play more than one instrument simultaneously. It was a great way to end a pretty uneventful day.