The cab driver appears at the door at a quarter to seven, a short 'Hasta Luego' and off we go. Today's trip will not be very different from yesterday's, a long ride through monotonous landscapes, where living beings cannot be seen for hours.
Travel like on a plane
If the outside view is as monotonous as I expect, this will be an entertaining ride.
Brown-green, deserted landscapes
And it will be monotonous. However, it would be a shame to let the wonderful scenery outside the window skip in favor of, for example, 'Jason Bourne'. The ride is anything but monotonous, but that is of course a matter of taste.
We are familiar with the pictures, the brown-green plains with a few scattered huts and villages, snow-covered mountain peaks on the horizon, sometimes a herd of llamas grazing peacefully, then again a village, a larger town.
A village on the way
Sometimes a village indeed emerges from the rough landscape, quite surprisingly, but very welcome. The roads are quite bad as in an old Sergio Leone western, only Clint Eastwood and Lee Van Cleef are missing ...
And what stands out above all - a very special kind of TukTuks can be admired here. They are also three-wheeled, but with closed roof and uniform blue and white or red and white painting. It makes you want to get inside immediately and be driven the rest of the way to Cusco.
Cusco
After more than 350 kilometers we reach Cusco, exactly according to the timetable.
My hotel is located on the hillside above the city. It's already pretty chilly, which will become another painful experience during the next few hours. There' s a pizzeria or something like that nearby, and so I'm spared the walk down to the city for tonight.
The pizzeria, however, offers everything but pizza that evening. It's a strange little place, just a few rather dirty tables, a kitchen, small children playing on the floor, and a menu card, also dirty and with an offer that doesn't match the printed one in any way.
Anyway, I decide with some apprehension for a 'Filet Milanese' and I indeed get a huge plate full of rice, fries, tomatoes, lettuce and a piece of meat that might actually somehow be something like Milanese.
Whatever the case, it tastes good, a young man sits down at the next table, starts a conversation with me while he smacks and chews and would do credit to any Chinese in terms of improper dining customs ...
Back in the hotel room, a cold awaits me that is quite severe. These rooms have no heating, God knows why. It's getting colder by the minute, and so there's nothing left to do but creep under the covers at eight o'clock and watch 'Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone' for the hundredth time ...
Mileage: 4665
Matching Song: Annie Taylor - Where the Grass is Greener
And here the journey continues ...
