Cusco, Peru: The Land of Fluffy Llamas & Roasted Guinea Pigs

Sept. 19: I had an adventurous last couple days in Cusco, gateway city to Machu Picchu and the Inca Trail that serves it.

After meeting with the impressive crew at Amazonas Explorer to discuss a rafting adventure next spring, I rented a mountain bike from Cusco’s most famous Scotsman, Dougie Stewart. Dougie has a huge inventory of killer Kona bikes, most all downhill fat-tire demons. I rented a Kona downhiller to ride uphill, steeply, for two hours, along a winding road arcing up into the hills overlooking the city.

Guinea pigs, caught wild, eaten con gusto.

Two hours of near non-stop pedaling, up grades that only a bike with an almost 1/1 gear ratio could make possible. I could have walked the bike faster than I was riding it at certain points, but there’s something to be said for consistency. So I stayed in the saddle….a cursed, evil saddle. My behind was numb after an hour.

I rode — pedaling maniacally in absurdly low gear, yet moving at a pace that can be described only as glacial — past the white monolithic statue of Jesus Cristo, overlooking Cusco below, and several Inca ruins, to and from which a trickle of other foreigners were walking. I envied them. All they had to do was put one foot in front of the other. Walking. What a concept.

On I peddled. Until I reached, finally, a windy, almost cold plateau that led to the turnoff for the village that Scotsman Dougie Stewart told me was the point at which all offroad trails lead back to Cusco.

“You can’t get lost. Evre’thing leeds bahk ta toun,” Dougie told me, blissfully. He offered to draw me a “wee map” showing that it was physically impossible to get lost.

Downhilling toward Cusco: Halfway to lost, two hours from the middle of nowhere.

Exiting town, of course, I promptly got lost.

Later on, back in Cusco, Dougie would tell me, “Ah, you taerned rrright, when you should’ve gone strrreight thrreuw toun.”

I really enjoy Scots accents.

Anyway, instead of the sloping, enjoyable offroad trails that Dougie told me I’d easily find back to Cusco, I found narrow, steep, and ankle-breaking rocky cowpaths that required me to carry the Kona bike on my back. I’d had enough downhill hiking in Peru, mind you. This was neither rugged nor fun. The sun was setting, I was in the middle of literally nowhere. No people, no animals, no man-made structures. Just big hills that looked…really cold to sleep on all night.

Do I turn back and take the highway back home, and know I wimped out? Or do I trust in the Scotsman’s proclamation: “You can’t get lost”? I had one hour of daylight. If I kept riding/carrying the bike further into the hills, presumably toward Cusco, I ran the risk of having to backtrack in total darkness on ankle-breaking terrain….carrying the bloody bike.

Sometimes you just give yourself up to the universe, and this was one of those times. I figured the worst that could happen was that night would fall, I’d be lost in the hills and have to slaughter a cow and slice open it’s belly and crawl inside to survive, like that scene in “Star Wars.”

But eventually, the deeper into the hills I rode (and carried the bike), I found signs of civilization. By “civilization,” I mostly refer to a litany of angry dogs that, no matter how small, seemed to think they needed to angrily nash at my ankles as I rode by their masters’ homes.

But dogs begat homes, which begat homeowners who pointed me in the direction of “toun.” By sunset, I was riding through the smoggy streets of Cusco….on a now-flat tire. I walked the bike back to the drop-off point and was happily exhausted.

In Cusco, Das Auto takes a back seat to Das Llama.

After a sound, desperately needed sleep, I spent one more day in town, absorbing its essential flavor and relishing the relative dearth of foreign tourists. Cusco is a pretty city for the uninitiated. The climate is cool, dry and crisp by day, chilly by night. It’s small enough at its heart for one to still glimpse any number of hearty old women walking their llamas through the narrow cobblestone streets.

Roadmonkey will be back here, in spring 2010, to raft the untamed Apurimac River, and hike the lesser-known segments of the Inca Trail around Machu Picchu.

Now, it’s off to Vietnam, to scout out Roadmonkey’s November expedition.

See you there!

- Paul