Lazy Hot Spring Day
Sunday August 23, 2009
June 15
Today we hung out in Aguas Calientes. We visited the hot springs, shopped, and ate a leisurely lunch. It is a beautiful little town albeit very touristy. There are plenty of young, hip Europeans leaning against lampposts, smoking cigarettes and eyeing others with disdain.
The springs are beautiful. One follows the river out of town, crosses over to the other side, and enters the facility. The pools are cement and look like swimming pools. There are four or five of them ranging in temperature from warm to sort of hot. They are clean and the river runs close by. In fact there are cool showers one can take with the river water. We lazed away the morning there, pruning our fingers and soaking up the sun.
We stopped by a jewelry store on the way back down the hill. We each bought something to take home with us. Further on we encountered a small restaurant with awesome food. We had to sort of rush through lunch as we had a train to catch.
We boarded the train after noon and commenced our three hour journey back to Cusco. We had been hearing rumblings of civil unrest throughout the country and we tried hard to gather information.
It seems that the government was interested in digging for oil in the Amazon up north. The natives there didn’t care for the idea and killed about thirty police officers before the government got the message. Trees were felled and large rocks placed across the road to inhibit the passage of vehicles.
Folks in the south felt a kinship with their northern brothers so they did the same thing (without killing anyone). Currently, the road between Cusco and Puno was closed with no word about when it would reopen. This threw a serious wrench in our plans as we were scheduled to take a ten hour bus ride to Puno in two days time. As of today, no buses were running.
Distressing as this sounded, we still had a day of rafting ahead of us tomorrow so we turned our focus to that. We enjoyed our night out in Cusco, then turned in for an early evening. Our bus leaves at six in the morning and we would like to be wide awake for the next adventure.
MJR
June 15
Today we hung out in Aguas Calientes. We visited the hot springs, shopped, and ate a leisurely lunch. It is a beautiful little town albeit very touristy. There are plenty of young, hip Europeans leaning against lampposts, smoking cigarettes and eyeing others with disdain.
The springs are beautiful. One follows the river out of town, crosses over to the other side, and enters the facility. The pools are cement and look like swimming pools. There are four or five of them ranging in temperature from warm to sort of hot. They are clean and the river runs close by. In fact there are cool showers one can take with the river water. We lazed away the morning there, pruning our fingers and soaking up the sun.
We stopped by a jewelry store on the way back down the hill. We each bought something to take home with us. Further on we encountered a small restaurant with awesome food. We had to sort of rush through lunch as we had a train to catch.We boarded the train after noon and commenced our three hour journey back to Cusco. We had been hearing rumblings of civil unrest throughout the country and we tried hard to gather information.
It seems that the government was interested in digging for oil in the Amazon up north. The natives there didn’t care for the idea and killed about thirty police officers before the government got the message. Trees were felled and large rocks placed across the road to inhibit the passage of vehicles.
Folks in the south felt a kinship with their northern brothers so they did the same thing (without killing anyone). Currently, the road between Cusco and Puno was closed with no word about when it would reopen. This threw a serious wrench in our plans as we were scheduled to take a ten hour bus ride to Puno in two days time. As of today, no buses were running.
Distressing as this sounded, we still had a day of rafting ahead of us tomorrow so we turned our focus to that. We enjoyed our night out in Cusco, then turned in for an early evening. Our bus leaves at six in the morning and we would like to be wide awake for the next adventure.
MJR
posted by Bronx to Timbuktu at 2:04 AM
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