Locos and Peligrosos

July 1st, 2008 by Rochelle Trail

It was fiesta time in Cusco this week and its difficult to describe the sheer ensuing craziness and party atmoshere. On Monday there was one parade after another from morning till night with absolutely no consistency between groups. Some groups had quite a religious theme carrying a display of Christ on the cross with an arrow through his arm(?) surrounded by figurines of half naked woman. While another group will be dancing girls in amazingly short dresses and high boots. This could all be followed by groups dressed in outrageous masks with huge noses or completely covered in white balaclavas pretending to be drunk and dancing with empty beer bottles.

This all culiminated in Inti Raymi on Tuesday which is the winter solstice and involves a huge festival at some local ruins of which the finale is supposed to be the slaughter of a llama with the an Incan priest offering the llamas heart to the sun. You can pay $90 for the privilege of a front row seat or rough it with the locals. Of course, I chose the latter option. The highlight was when thousands of locals stormed the ruins for a better view which had been cordoned off by police and the cops were powerless to stop them. I guess that is what happens when you charge prices that no locals can seriously contemplate.

A couple of nights earlier, there was a big concert on in the plaza and it was jam packed with people. We managed to squeeze our way across but not without incident. It wasn´t till he looked that one of the guys realised he´d been pickpocketed. They´d managed to get his wallet out of the front pocket of his jeans without him feeling a thing. Real Oliver Twist styles. Then at Inti Raymi I actually spied a female pickpocket trying to get into my friends overshoulder bag. She bailed pretty quick once she realised she’d been spotted. However, I met a Spanish guy a couple of weeks ago who had travelled the world without incident except for getting his car broken into on the Karangahake gorge.

Around this time I also had an interesting encounter with a shoe shine man. Small change is really necessary here and hard to get hold of when the ATM’s only dispense $25 or $50 notes. Anyway I really did need my shoes polished but only had $25 but he assured me he had change. So we agreed on $1 for the shoeshine. So once he´d finished he took my $25 then went to get the change. Round the corner. Out of sight. I realised this was potentially the most expensive shoe shine anyone had ever had. Fortunately he had left me with his shoe shine stuff to safeguard in his absence. Hence I began busily working out just how many shoe shines I was going to do in order to make my $25 back. And berating myself for being such a fool despite being a reasonably seasoned traveller (i.e.old). Well the relief I experienced when the shoe shine man eventually showed up and managed to keep my credibility intact.

The other area of craziness that amps up during festival time is crazy taxi drivers. Because you pay a flat fee not based on their time, they will endeavour to get you there in the quickest time possible. La Doctora said that taxi drivers have a saying that ¨God is a Peruvian¨ due to the amount of close encounters that they manage to survive and I am inclined to agree.

And here is just a sample of my experiences:
1. Driving from Urcos to Andahuaylillas with 16 people in the taxi. Admittedly it was a station wagon.
2. Driving from Andahuaylillas to Cusco and overtaking at night on a particularly busy stretch and pulling into our lane just in time to see the oncoming truck had a big sign saying ¨Peligro Combustibles¨ i.e. crash into me and we’ll probably both go up in flames
3. Reversing up Avenida de la Cultura (main street) once he realised he’d missed my turn into oncoming traffic just last night

While a lot of the drivers are really nice and great to practice Spanish on, some are a little more dodgy. On the evening of Inti Raymi I ended up missing a rendevous with a friend so jumped in a cab to try and meet up at our proposed destination. We ended up on a bit of a wild goose chase for almost an hour which involved a bit of tiki touring and then he had the audacity to charge me $75! Bear in mind that a taxi fare in Cusco is $1 pretty much regardless of where you go. I was happy to pay extra but not that much. After arguing with him for 5 minutes, in order to get out of the way of oncoming traffic he inadvertently pulled up outside the tourist police. Once I suggested that I would go and have a chat to them about what a fair price might be, he took his $5 and was done with it. Not until I gave him a small lecture on not trying to rip off tourists. Which he apologised profusely for and drove off at speed in order to find another more gullible gringo.

There was a different festival in Andahuaylillas this weekend as well (can’t seem to get enough of them over here!). As compared to Cusco I was the only tourist at this one. This went mostly un-noticed except by one young girl who shouted “gringita” and pointed in my direction. They marched 47 saints through the streets and then celebrated with eating, dancing and drinking in the streets. And cock fighting in the backyard of Casa del Sol. Which is how I came to lose $5 on a cock with no tail feather. I thought it meant that he was the survivor of many tough battles. Just not this time apparently.