Day 18: Getting the hell out of Cusco
Most people assume small towns are more quiet than their larger counterparts. As I was laying in bed last night, I took in the sounds of Urubamba. Instead of Cusco's grumbling car motors, honking, and shouting hawkers, Urubamba delivered to me the sounds of children playing, friends chatting, dogs barking, and the wind coming through my window. The scene was not necessarily quieter than Cusco's city-life, but it was certainly more tranquil. In fact, I am entirely happy to be out of Cusco and back here in the Inca's Sacred Valley, a place so beautiful you wonder whether calling it "sacred" is in fact redudant.
Cusco is beautiful too. But Cusco gave me a horrific stomach ache (followed by me having to retaste my pizza), gasping breaths at 11,500 feet, and the daily experience of having to deal with annoying hawkers and touts as they try to jockey you out of your money for this or that. I think it really was the latter that bothered me the most. My hostel was near Cusco's main plaza, meaning I had to cross this busy area at least twice per day. That generally meant having to deal with around 10 different hustlers everyday, each trying to get me into their restaurant, or movie theatre, or into their sunglasses or bag of marijuana. The first day in Cusco this was not so annoying. But yesterday, day 4 in the city, I simply got so sick of the situation, of being treated like a walking ATM machine, that I split and headed down into the valley below the city, to this Urubamba, and tranquility, and huge salt pools.
