Cuzco / Machu Picchu or the horrors of mass tourism

I hesitated before coming to Cuzco: the guidebook says that if there is only one place to visit in South America it should be here. Hummm, sounds like a tourist trap. Even Peruvians say it is really expensive and full of tourists, especially by now that we are in the middle of summer school holidays in Europe and the US. But I would have regretted to skip it so I came.

And guess what? I both hate and love Cuzco. I hate that 20 people come per day to sell me pictures I do not need, I hate that prices are more expensive than the rest of the country and that when I mention it to the people who sell these stuff they look at me as if I was the one having no idea of what I am talking about, I hate that I am offered drugs more here than other places, I hate that the music here is more Western than Latina, the same goes for the food and finally I hate more than everything that Cuzco has more tourists than travelers.

Before you start telling me: "Hey so you hate me each time I go as a tourist somewhere?" I want to point out that I mean here the tourists who not only do not learn the language at all (I can understand it if you just have 2/3 weeks) but who behave as if they were in a colony. And because these people keep having home as their reference, each price they pay is cheap even if they pay double the normal prce. And then I come behind and when I am asked the same price I say "no way!" and it is almost impossible to bargain it down. Another irritating thing is that so many people think I am Anglo-saxon (Australian or North American is what I hear most) so they talk to me in English.

But this morning as I was thinking about this article I also thought about the streets of Cuzco, one of the few cities in South America that has a real character (like Popayan, Cuanca or Cartagena),



some history, and that you are really happy to walk through. So I took my camera and went to shoot it as it is, torn between it sbeauty and its uglyness.



I will do it again one day at 6am to get rid of the uglyness and I hope I will make nicer shots of the then empty streets.

Then I thought about Europe: Venice, Florence, Brugges. some parts of Paris etc... and then I knew that Peruvians were not to blame, they just copy what we do with our nicest spots. Mass tourism is to blame, the one that transforms almost any nice building of our nicest citiues in vending machines. I hate it but at the same time I am part of it because it is mass tourism that makes things cheaper so that I can travel longer...

Finally I also met really nice people whether travelers or locals with whom I speak only Spanish and I will go next to the family of Susan whom I met in Australia. I want also to mention that some people like Mama Cuzco, the owner of my hospedaje or some street/market vendors are genuinely nice and it is a pleasure to speak with them and wander away from the main plaza (= square).

If mass tourism is the plague of Cuzco then Aguas Calientes (the village at the bottom of the mountain Machu Picchu where you have to go through to visit the site) is a plague in itself. This village has no life outside Machu Picchu and has only restaurants, handicraft shops and hotels, all this time even more expensive than Cuzco (example: a bottle of water costs 3 soles in Cuzco, 5 in Aguas Calientes whereas it is 2.10 /2.50 in the rest of the Peru). It has only one access through a train which costs more than a 1$ per Km (probably a world record) and its inhabitants are all but friendly (and this is the sadest in all this). This is a place where making you pay something at a ridiculous price is not a scam because it is the norm like our restaurant that invoiced a servicio coming out of nowhere and accepted that we did not pay it when we became furious... You know what, the most irritating thing with the train is that it belongs to an English company (Orient Express, I checked in their annual report) so the money does not even go directly to Peruvians. And even backpackers usually take it at least once because the only two ways to avoid it are challenges in themselves: a full day of 1 bus, 2 collectivos and 10 kms walk alongside train tracks or an exhausting 28 kms walk along train or on train tracks then 2 collectivos and 1 bus.

Don´t worry it was not always that narrow

But it is worth it (I did both) as I paid 37 soles return against a minimum of 60 $ ( apprx 180 soles); Sometimes it´s good to be more stubborn than a donkey.

And Machu Picchu in all this?

Machu Picchu, vu de la porte du soleil (at 2pm)

Well there is no doubt having such a city there is impressive, the fog in the morning and the little sunlight I had were cool but I cannot help being a bit disappointed by Machu Picchu and not only because I just had an ok weather.

If I compare it to the temples of Angkor built a few centuries beforee I notice that none of the rocks were decorated and that even the temples of the city have been almost completely destroyed. I was told this is the Inca architecture that is just meant to be simple. There would not be all this hype around MP I guess I would not feel that but I have heard so much bout it that I was expecting something else....