Quick facts: Ancient capital of Incan civilization; GPS: -13.516728, -71.978783; GMT-5; Altitude: 11176′
Cuzco – Today was a leisurely day because mostly it was just traveling to and fro. I woke up and had breakfast at the hotel like most days here. After that I got my stuff packed and ready for the train back to Cusco. I checked out of the hotel and roamed around the market right in front of the train station while I waited to board.
My train left more or less on time at around 10:30. As on the way here the return trip is the same in reverse. From Aguas Calientes the train took us to Ollantaytambo and lasted just under two hours. From there we were put on one of their small shuttle busses and headed to Cusco. Besides the seeming confusion on the part of the rail company on how to load us onto the transportation we encountered on boarding both the train and the shuttle we had a pretty smooth trip. We got back into Cusco a little before 15:00 and I got a car to take me to the hotel I arranged so I could check in.
As it was still fairly early I decided to go back into the downtown area and check out more of the city since the first time around was so quick. The first stop was to go to the Peru Hop office and claim my shirt that they give to their customers. I had thought about going in La Paz to get one of the Bolivia Hop shirts as well but didn’t have time so I was glad to at least get this one. From there I walked around the main plaza of the city since their office was so close to it all.
After some time walking around the smaller streets I was ready for dinner. When I looked at the places that were rated well on Trip Advisor I went to check them out but kept running into a similar problem. They were all mostly really touristy and not what I would consider authentic Peruvian food. I was not in the mood for a hamburger so I kept looking. I eventually wound up at this place that I reluctantly went into only because I was running out of options. This was the beginning of a not so great experience. They weren’t crowded but they sure acted like they were not in control. I had to ask several times for silverware even after my food was brought to me. So I spent some time just sitting there looking at my soup with nothing to eat it with. I was also not the only table in the place that was having issues. I overheard at least 3 other tables complaining about the food or the bill or something as I couldn’t always understand everything that was being said. While the food was good, I do not recommend this place (hence no name) and was happy to leave when it was over.
After dinner there wasn’t much else that I knew about to go see so I just opted to head back to the hotel and make it an early night. The hotel I arranged was not close to downtown so I grabbed a car back and hung out in my room watching some TV before actually hitting the rack.