At the airport nice and early...on Peru´s National holiday of Independence Day

So this morning there is time to tell a few funny stories. About our adventures in ¨trip preparation¨ here in Cuzco on Tuesday. We had a fantastic drive into the city from the Sacred Valley, with beautiful views of the high plain and mountains as we wound our way up and out of the valley, as well as some incredible scenes of the Andean farmers tending their fields. Its not uncommon to see the local people wearing the traditional dress and carrying their goods on their backs in their hand-woven carry bags and shawls-wraps. After checking into our cute hotel in the barrio of San Blas (a steep climb up from the central (and very ´touristed´) part of town, we decided to go and buy the entrance tickets that Daliah and I would need for Machu Picchu. Now, please keep in mind that we had read this would need to be done in either Cuzco or in Aguas Calientes, the village closest to MP. In order to remove stress and anxiety, we decided this could be done in Cuzco, and then we´d go to the Llama Path office to get the guys checked in for their trek, since they needed to be there 2 days early to pay the rest of their fees in cash, and to find out some more information. So....we set out down the cobble stone street to find our way to wherever we might do this (we thought the purchasing ¨´centre´´ (sorry, the keyboards are different here and I´m paying by the minute in the internet zone of the airport, so I don´t want to stop and figure out which key is the right one for certain punctuation marks!) was in the central Plaza des Armas, so we headed in that direction. We passed by a municipal information office for tourists, and Daliah and I went in to ask about where we would buy los bolletas. Although the helpful lady spoke no English, I used what Spanish I had and she got a map and drew for us where we needed to go. We began walking, with Lorne and Brian figuring out the map, and all of us wondering what was going on. We decided to stop in at one of the ancient sites near the Plaza and asked the man there about the Machu Picchu tickets...he told us they were sold out for several days (which provoked some anxiety of course), and then he confirmed that the tickets were indeed sold at the ¨´INC´ which stands for somethng like the Institute for National Culture, and indeed at the location as marked...so we started walking some more, and confirmed along the way with locals that we were indeed going in the right direction. After 15 or 20 minutes, we wondered why we had not come upon such an important building. The guys were well ahead of us by then, and the road had changed to a local high street, with all manner of shops...seemed to be hardware row...shops where you could buy just lighting acoutrements, shops for just plumbing stuff...and still no INC! We wondered, why is such an important building located out here? But, ours is not to wonder why. By now, the guys were a block or more ahead. Daliah and I came to a cross street and saw a big crowd of people in a kind of line up down the side street. I said, ¨hmm, wonder what that is all about?¨ We walked to catch up with the guys, and they said we should have passed the place already. We went into a cell phone sales place and the guy said we had to go back a ways, and we´d see it. We did that, and at the exact location, all we could see was a high wall made of metal, topped by barbed wire! We walked back some more, and then, only then, did we figure out that the huge line up of people was for the Machu Picchu tickets! We found our way into the  correct line (those who have not pre-ordered), and once there, Daliah said, ´do you think we need our passports for this?´A really nice young woman behind us said she thought we did. Lorne went to the front of the line and a few minutes came back with the information...yes, indeed, we needed our passports, and yes, there were still tickets available for July 31. Thus began an afternoon of  learning about how Peruvian bureacracy has been incredibly inefficiently designed. It seems that the national holiday and the 100th birthday of MP, combined with the opening up of 400 more permitted visitors per day, have made for a rush on tickets, such that purchasing for the next day is very unlikely. Here is what happened over the next hour or so...Lorne and Brian took a cab back to the hotel to get our passports, (no we didn´t have them), Daliah and I waited in the line and made good friends with young Peruvian hotelier who was purchasing tickets for her guests, and with two young travellers who had just come from Lago Titicaca, Lorne and Brian returned with the passports in about 20 minutes. The guard for the entrance to buy the tickets came along the line and stamped everyone in it because they were only going to let so many more people into the building, we got to the front of the line after a long wait and meanwhile, Lorne and Brian helped out other people in the line who did not know what to do, and did not have any of the information we had just learned through experience, we also checked our guide book and learned that indeed you need your passport to purchase, then laughed at ourselves for not reading that first!, then Daliah and I were finally permitted to enter. Now when I say ´´enter´, you need to picture a large sheet metal wall (yes, that is what I said), and a very small hole cut out of it to make a ´door´, so that everyone going in must bend in half to enter. Yes, folks, this is the Institute National of Cultura for entrance to the number one tourist site in South America, the number one historical site in the western hemisphere, some might argue! That is what I¨m saying. Once we entered, we saw many small lines of people. We got into one of the ones on the right, as guided by the guard, and waited again to purchase our tickets...but no, folks, we were NOT purchasing our tickets in this line. Once at the window, we told the lady we wanted 2 tickets for July 31, and she booked us both in on her computer. I asked if we could pay with Visa, and she motioned to another set of wickets at right angles to hers, and yes, folks, that is what I´m saying, another 15 minutes in line to PAY for what we had just booked. It got a little funnier still when Daliah tried to communicate with Brian through the guard who spoke no English, that she needed her credit card. Suffice to say, we finally got what we came for, and we had quite the travellers´experience in so doing, because when you pre-order everything from home, and you pre-arrange all these things, you lose this kind of gritty hands-on interaction with bureacracies, the kind of thing that Lorne and I experienced all the time when we travelled so many years ago. Now that we are older, this is somewhat new to us, but it is replete with that feeling of discovery and adventure, and the guys had helped out a Kiwi travelling with his wife and children (they are homeschooled), and as we left the building, the Kiwi gentleman said, ¨¨your guys really helped me out! Go Canada!¨ This is the kind of thing that makes for great memories and good fun. We all then hopped in a cab and headed for the Llama Path office, and I´ll save that story for the next post...gotta go stretch my legs now.

More later folks. Have a great day! xoDeb.