Around the world for the 1st time [Day 18] Aguas Calientes ⇒ Oriantaytambo ⇒ Cusco

Aguas Calientes Station ⇒ Ollantaytambo Station

I was too bored last night and went to bed early, so I woke up feeling refreshed. We will now take the train back to Ollantaytambo station.

As I was getting ready to check out, I thought to myself, “By the way, that coca tea I had yesterday was delicious. I’ll have another cup before I leave,” and was about to go down to the lobby when I heard a voice saying, “Oh, what is that? I remember you bought a lot of chocolate with coca leaves yesterday, didn’t you, mermaid? Isn’t coca out of the airplane?” I looked it up on my phone and found that coca-containing chocolates are prohibited! Busted! I immediately sent a message to my mermaid, who, in tears, distributed the chocolates to the hotel staff before checking out!

Cusco

Arriving in Ollantaytambo, we picked up our luggage from the hotel and headed for Cusco. Arriving in Cusco, we checked into our hotel and immediately went out to explore the city of Cusco.

A wedding was taking place in a church, so I was allowed to join in a little dancing, which made me happy as well. The city is made of cobblestones, so it is slippery and hard to walk on even when it is dry. If it rained, it would be very slippery.

We entered a souvenir store. It seemed to be a family-run business, and the atmosphere was very homey. So I asked the mermaid to bargain with me. In Japanese, she said, “Well, it’s a little expensive. How about this?” She borrowed a calculator in the store and played the numbers (at first she offered less than half the price) and showed it to them. Then, I’ll buy this one too…” All at the mermaid’s pace. In the end, the shopkeeper lost the battle and marmaid said, “C’mon! Thanks! And we left the store. Incidentally, I also got a discount for my purchase (a pullover knitted with alpaca hair).

There was an alpaca and I took a picture with him, but it was raining and the alpaca was wet and smelly! They smelled about 10 times worse than dogs! I wonder where that picture went… And the cobblestones are wet and slippery!

Twelve Angled Stone

The mermaid is looking for the Twelve Angled Stone, but I just follow her. We went down an alley…and there it was! Wow! This is it! A stone wall so perfectly aligned that not even a single razor blade could fit through it. This is definitely the work of a species from another planet. So beautiful…. I heard that it didn’t even get scared when a big earthquake hit.

On the way back to the hotel, I found an ATM and a post office. I was running low on cash, so I decided to withdraw it here and, while I was at it, send some unwanted luggage from the post office. I returned to the hotel, brought the unwanted luggage, packed it into a box, and sent it off. This made me feel much lighter. It was my first time to cash out my credit card at an ATM overseas, and I was very nervous, but I guess that’s part of the experience. I was able to withdraw the money safely.

After a short rest, we went into town for dinner, but it started raining pretty hard, so we rushed into a random restaurant, which was a great decision! We ordered steaks and shared them. I had a beer and the mermaid had her promised Inca Cola.

Mermaid is exchanging e-mails with someone. She said that a local staff member of the Round the World Club of Japan is coming over here to apologize for the bus driver who took his girlfriend on the bus to Ollantaytambo without permission. And she actually came in the rain. I was touched by her sincerity. The mermaid seemed to agree.