We finished our Spanish Classes and now can proudly (albeit a bit grammatically inaccurately) ask for most things and make ourselves understood in small conversations with the locals. 3 days, 6 hours per day study was intensive but worth it.As we look around us in these few days in Cuzco, we see a life that seems to be several decades behind western countries in terms of material life and infrastructure. We see it in our hostel now. It's clear that furniture and fixtures were once good – cash was somehow cobbled together to buy them – but when something has broken, money hasn't been spent replace or fix it. Any available cash seems to have been spent on “luxuries” like a TV, fridge, computer or washing machine. These are ancient too – the fridge is at least 30 years old – there is a sticker on it for The Police album, “Ghost in the machine”, released in 1981... The TV is an old Philips thing with a dial to tune the channels and sliders for brightness and contrast controls. The result is a house that looks about 70 years out of date with a few modern items time-transported in around 20-30 years ago.
Our room has a few eccentricities. A bathroom with a leaking sink (we took a further step t
oward becoming real travellers, cutting a water bottle to catch the worst of it in a makeshift bucket.). The ceiling also leaked a little when the rain was heavy and a few crumbs of ceiling plaster came with the water.Electricity is a luxury too. Our room has some sockets, none of which work. In our schoolroom, the electricity connection you see in the picture is not an uncommon site.
As I was writing the above sentences, the following happened – really. A large chunk of plaster fell from the ceiling, narrowly missing Nicki's head but scratching her side as she was sitting next to me on the bed as I wrote. Most of the plaster landed directly on the laptop which miraculously works fine after a good brush off. We showed the owners the plaster-covered bed and chunk of bare ceiling. They casually apologised, mentioned how hard the rain falls and that they had another room. We've just moved all our stuff there. We are both OK, but were quite shaken for a few minutes until we could laugh it off as “all part of the experience...”
After spending the whole week indoors, on Saturday we wanted to get out and took a walk up
the hill directly behind our hostel. A breathless stagger up the steep steps gave up breathtaking views across the city as well as a glimpse of how the people are living – in a very simple way with very few amenities. It also confirmed that houses are being made of mud and plaster (maybe wattle and daub as we would know it?). Ceilings, as we saw clearly by recent experience, are made of reeds and plaster. It is a work-intensive, low cost way of building hou
ses, and clearly the income from tourism is one of the ways that people in the hills are able to have some basics – electricity and a bit of warmth, plus a mostly-dry roof over their head.Another interesting little insight into the way things are done was seen today. We have made friends with an Argentinian guy, Adrian – a very interesting guy who has played semi-professional Rugby and is a journalist. He's opened a small shop and café in our favourite square, San Blas,
and he explained that the other morning a couple of Brits staying in a hostel above him had woken to find a drill coming through the wall – which is 1.2 metres thick. The owners of the next-door building are illegally building a hotel and are just going ahead with the work without any planning permission. When quizzed on this work, the contractors said it was a “mistake” (drilling 1.2 metres through a wall, a mistake...?) The next incident came when next-door's owner announced to our friend that he is knocking one wall down. As we sat drinking coffee, a posse of officials from the city and local law firms came to look at the wall and debate the rights and wrongs. It seems much bribing has been done to avoid planning permission, but still they have claims against them for all kinds of misdemeanours during the work. The outcome is not yet known, but Adrian seemed confident that right would prevail.The city itself is beautiful in the main tourist centres, but with the major downside of traffic-pollution. We hadn't really noticed it too much until it had not rained for a whole day (it rains every day for 8-9 months in Cuzco and we are in that period...). We walked through the city centre and could barely breathe oxygen. There are not so many cars – mainly tiny Daewoo's – but the concept of a catylisator is clearly a thing of the distant future. I sit here no
w in a café on a balcony, and just the fumes from one minibus are very noticeable. We walked through the streets after dark and could see very visibly in the car headlights the ever-present fumes we had been breathing in.I read this back and it sounds like a negative picture, but that's certainly not our experience. Cuzco and the surroundings are absolutely beautiful, food has been very good and inexpensive (a good meal for two with a couple of caipirinhas each costs around 15-20 Euros max.) and the atmosphere in the city is very much alive. The picture here shows the day we saw an incredible rainbow, arcing over the church in the main square.
The people have been incredibly friendly, hopefully helped by our enthusiastic attempts at speaking Spanish.
