The Adventures of Sam: Part I

When we were in Cuzco, our good friend Sam came to visit. We duct-taped him to a chair and forced him to write a blog post. Here's the first part of Sam's account of his visit, enjoy!

I arrived in Peru on April 8th or so. The five and a half hour flight down there was over quickly and there I was in Lima, bleary-eyed at 4:30 am. Rich and Kendra had been gone for over a year at this point. Leaving from the Miami airport to go visit them seemed reasonable - it was still in the US and I have other good friends that I have not seen in over a year.

Lima is often blanketed in fog and that night was no different. Nothing of the city or surrounding area could be seen from the glass-walled airport either. A short while after landing I thought that flying to Peru to meet backpacking friends would be a great practical joke. It is a little surreal landing in a foreign country, very early in the morning, with no clear idea of where you are going.

The flight from Lima to Cusco was great. Star Peru operates little quad engine jets with maybe 40 or 50 seats. Shortly after takeoff mountains became visible in the distance. As we flew over them clouds were flowing over ridges into valleys. Mountain streams and waterfalls were in each eroded valley. The scenery was beautiful. We didn't have to descend very far into Cusco, elevation 10,800 feet. As soon as we landed I felt like I was going to suffocate in the thin, rare air - turns out I was just excited to see Rich and Kendra.

Boy was it good to see Rich and Kendra again. They looked really really skinny, unhealthily so by American standards. Rest assured I tried to fatten them up as best I could, but they resisted my efforts at every turn - but I digress.

The drive to the hostel was exciting. The dogs and people were dodging the car as we were driven, in an unsafe manner of course, through the town to the hostel. The hostel was staffed by a number of friendly, perhaps even too friendly, Peruvian dudes of about our same age. When asked for suggestions of things to do or places to go eat/drink they invariably suggested the most casual tourist friendly place. We only asked them for suggestions one or two times.

We had a great private room in the hostel which even had it's own private bathroom - though this would become a bit of a problem over the course of the week. You see, the hostel only had water for parts of the day, so it was a gamble each time to see if you could take a shower let alone flush the toilet. Overall the Flying Dog hostel was a great place in a good location a short walk away from the Cusco main square. It was far enough away to not be loud, yet close enough that we didn't have to walk more than five minutes to be knee deep in the action.

Kendra and Rich suggested that we go to the local market shortly after getting settled in. The market was pretty crazy. It is arranged into sections which smell good or bad depending on what the vendors are selling. The produce and spices smelled great, and the meat... well it is hard for non-refrigerated piles of meat to smell good. Oddly, the fish section of the market smelled much better than the meat section. Fresh fish. Our favorite smoothie lady was also in the market. We stopped to get smoothies from her two days in a row early in my trip. They were delicious. We bummed around the city the rest of my first day in town and went out for a nice dinner where I discovered something amazing - the Pisco Sour (a traditional Peruvian cocktail made with raw eggwhite and Pisco, a local liquor).

We also hung out in Cusco for the second day of the trip, ostensibly so I could acclimatize to the altitude. Even though I live at 500 feet and Cusco is at 10,800 feet, the altitude was nothing that a fresh steeped mug of coca tea or a fat coca leaf wad couldn't fix. Rich and I took a long walk up a hill next to the hostel to an area that was well off the beaten path. We had some great views of the city from there and it was great to do a little exploring.