Coffee with Che

Someone knocked on my door. At 6:30 in the morning. It was the reception guy of my hostel, informing me that my little friends, Juan and his sidekick, where waiting for me to go to the ruins. I told him that before 9am I would definately not be available and went back to sleep. When I went out around 9am they were already waiting for me in the internet cafe in front of the hostel. That´s stamina. I told them that I couldn´t go with them as I had to meet Karl. Juan got all sully and huffy and questioned me on when and for how long I would meet my friend and if I couldn´t take them to the white cross overlooking the city or go horse-back riding. And of course he wanted another "Bembo´s" burger. This is really sad, once you are nice to somebody here in Cusco they can´t get enough of it - even the kids are already trained in the art of gringo milking. I had to think of my little friend in Sao Luis who was so different to them, smart, polite and cute. And from the speed with which he ate the meal we got for him he was really starved. These kids here in Cusco are just send out by their parents to get some extra income for the family, I guess. Sure, by European standard they are definately poor, but compared to their Peruvian or South American contemporaries in less touristic places they are definately well off. I was happy when Karl arrived and we went off to the market in search of breakfast. Like me, Karl is not an early bird and not very communicative before getting his first coffee, as it seems. We should get along very well :-)

For lunch we met up with Alvaro and checked out another vegetarian restaurant. There are quite a lot all over Cusco but unfortunately the food is very similar in all of them. The menu usually consists of a vegetable soup and is followed by a rice dish. Nothing special but for 5-6 soles its ok. Its a pity but everytime the thre of us are together, Alvaro goes quite. He speaks very good English so I am not sure why... its a pity as he usual is very good company.

After lunch Alvaro took us to a little cafe where Che Guevara used to have his coffee when he passed through Cusco. The coffee was not revolutionary, but much better than most Peruvian coffees, that is Nescafe. Of course I had to check out the bathroom, too - what a revolutionary experience to use the same bathroom Che Guevara had! Thomas, if you are reading this - you missed a magic moment of my bathroom travel experiences ;-)

After this historical experience Karl, Alvaro, his friend Elizabeth and I went to San Sebastian, a little village or suburb of Cusco. Karl had heard that there was a fair going on and we went to check it out. Unfortunately Elizabeth turned out to be a real b... When I asked her where she was from she snapped back "Peru". In the wild I would have snapped back that I could have deducted that from her being so short but I pulled myself together and asked her which place. She then asked me back which places I knew and I told her about the places I had visited in Peru so far. She just replied that I didn´t know anything. I would have loved to tell her that I spend more than a month in her lama-infested, gringo-milking country, left a lot of money here and definately read more about the culture and history than most of my fellow travellers did. And I doubt that she has ever been to Europe or knows anything about my country. Out of respect for Alvaro and also for Karl I kept quiet. Even though San Sebastian is a nice place and the fair was interesting too, for me the afternoon was spoilt. What a pity.

We sat down next to the local football pitch and Alvaro and the witch shared a beer. Karl took some great pictures, landscape and portraits. He already took quite a lot of portraits of interesting faces, usually old people or people with a very expressive face... he seems to be a talented fotographer! I had my moment of sweet revenche when the witch got up and stumbled over the beer bottle, spilling the beer all over the place.

An old little lady with a very wrinkled face walked by. Karl wanted to ask her for a picture so we followed her down the road and over a make-shift little bridge. Unfortunately she refused to pose for a picture - I guess she felt ashamed or thought we were making fun of her. But only a couple of minutes later she came back, crying. What a sight to see such an old person cry. I asked her what happened and she replied that she had lost her little dog. She didn´t have any teeth left so it was hard to understand her. Both Karl and I felt very shocked and didn´t know how to react. We offered her our sincere commiseration but where both pretty helpless... Alvaro and the witch weren´t of any help either. So the little old lady sat down on the steps leading down to the bridge and kept on crying. Later on Alvaro told us that the witch was afraid of the little wrinkled old lady, suspecting her of having the evil eye. If not for my friends I would have told her whom I was suspecting of having the evil eye! ;-)

The fair was very cute - we bought popcorn and watched a professional cardplayer cheat. We saw some very cute kids on the merry-go-rounds and some interesting faces for Karls portrait collection...

On the way back we saw a little girl dressed in traditional clothing - mostly likely one of the little girls posing with lamas - changeing dollars into soles. She got back coins, so I guess it was just a dollar, but she was so happy she was running-jumping down the street, her braids and plaitte skirt jumping too. A very cute little scene and typical of Cusco, a mix of tradition, commerce, tourism...

As soon as we got back to Cusco I escaped the witch and later met up with Karl. I would have loved to spend some more time with Alvaro as he knows a lot about cinema and especially about latin and Brazilian cinema, but I was not ready to spend more time in the company of his snappy bitchy friend. What a pity.

Karl and I went in search of falafel, which I thought I had seen on my first morning in Cusco. Strange enough I couldn´t find the place again. Slightly pissed by all the "massaaaaaaage" offers we decided to respond everytime with a "Falafel?". Finally, finally we found an israely restaurant serving falafel and hummus. Yummy. For a "postre" we later went to a place serving "picarones", deep friend sweet potatoes with syrup. We also booked a hostel in Puno and planned to travel together to the Peruvian and Bolivian islands on Lake Titikaka. Karl is funy, intelligent, political and very easy-going. And he knows where to find the cheapest food, best picarones and managed to go to Macchu Picchu on an economical alternative route. A perfect travel companion. ;-)