from: Dilwyn Jenkins: The rough guide to Peru; Rough
Guides, New York London, Delhi; 6th edition September
2006; www.roughguides.com
Arrival, information and city transport
[Telephone dialing code for Cusco is 084, international
0051-84].
Taxi or colectivo from the
airport to the center of Cusco
Cusco's [international airport] Aeropuerto Internacional
Velasso Astete (T. 222611) is 4km south of the city center.
You can either take a taxi from outside the arrivals hall
($2-3 to the city center) or a colectivo combi from outside
the airport car park (frequent departures 50 cents), which
goes to Plaza San Francisco via Avenida Sol and Plaza de
Armas. Note that the airport is full of tour touts, who
should be avoided.
Coming from the Huanchac
train station
If you're coming in by train from Juliaca, Puno or Arequipa,
you'll arrive at the Huanchac
train station in the southeast of the city;
you can hail a taxi on the street outside (around $1 to the
center), or turn left out of the station and walk about a
hundred meters to Avenida Sol, from where you can either
catch a colectivo (30 cents, including the airport one if it
has space, see above), or walk the eight or nine blocks up a
gentle hill to the Plaza de Armas, essentially the city
center.
[Since two years the natives are prohibited to sell their
products on the Plaza de Armas because tourists feel too
molested].
Coming by bus from the bus
terminals of Cusco
Apart from Cruz del Sur, who have their own independent
depot at Avenida Pachacutec, a few blocks east of Huanchac
railway station and Avenida Sol,
inter-regional and international buses (see
Listings, p. 272, for details) arrive and depart from the
rather scruffy Terminal Terrestre at Avenida Vallegos
Santoni, block 2 (T. 224471) southeast of the center, close
to the Pachacutec monument and roundabout
(ovalo) and roughly
halfway between the Plaza de Armas and the airport. Taxis
from here to the city center cost $1-2, or you can walk to
the Pachacutec
ovalo
and catch a colectivo uphill to either the Plaza San
Francisco or the Plaza de Armas - otherwise, it's about a
half-hour walk.
Local buses to regional
centers
Regional buses from
the Sicuani, Urcos and Paucartambo areas stop around blocks
15 and 16 of Avenida de la Cultura, from where it's a bit of
a hike, so you'll almost certainly want to take a taxi
($1-2) or bus or combi colectivo (30 cents) to the center.
Almost all
Sacred Valley
buses come and go from Avenida Grau 525 (for Pisac,
Urubamba, Chincheros, Ollantaytambo), near Puente Grau, or
Tullumayu 207 (for Pisac). Another bus stop for Urubamba via
Pisac can be found in block 2 of Calle Puputi.
To get up to Sacsayhuaman [Inca fortress 2km on a hill near
Cusco] without the breathtaking experience of walking up
there before you've really acclimatized to the altitude,
take the Tranvia Cusco woodenbus (T. 224377 or 740640; $2 or
less, small children, free) which takes a scenic ride
through the historic center up to Sacsayhuaman and back most
days; it's usually found parked outside the
Hostal Familiar on
Calle Saphi.
Tourist information offices
The main
tourist office,
operated by the Dirección Regional de Industria y Turismo
(DRIT ["Local department of industry and tourism"]) at
Portal de Mantas 117-A (Mon-Fri 8am-7pm, Sat 8am-2.30pm; T.
263176 or 222032), is a short block from the Plaza de Armas
(p.248)
with information kiosks at the airport and the Terminal
Terrestre. Another small municipal tourist-information kiosk
is in the pedestrian area outside San Pedro market (Mon-Fri
9am-noon and 3-6pm).
The downtown tourist information office is well-staffed,
spacious and offers a friendly service with sound advice on
where to go and how to get there, as well as maps and
brochures. Some tourist information is also provided by
i-Peru Tourist Assistance
from from their office at Avenida Sol 103 (Rom 203; daily
9am-7pm; T. 252974, Fax 234498, e-mail
iperucusco@promperu.gob.pe), as well as from a booth at the
airport (daily 6am-4pm, sometimes later; t. 237364). There's
also an information kiosk with very limited information
(irregular hours between 8am and 6pm) at the Terminal
Terrestre bus terminal.
Other sources are tour agencies around the Plaza de Armas or
along calles Plateros and Procuradores, running uphill from
the plaza. They provide leaflets promoting their own tours,
but many also offer customized generic plans of the city and
simple maps of the Sacred Valley and nearby regions. The
Cuscoperu website is a good source of information about
Cusco: www.cuscoperu.com (S.249).
City transport - walking
[Maps of the town are hardly to have. Ask in the tourist
offices. The bus system is never indicated. Tourists have no
chance to get the bus lines out in only one or two weeks].
Cusco's center is small enough to walk around. Taxis can be
waved down on any street [they are attacking the white
tourists with honking as much as they can, you cannot walk
on a street without being attacked because poverty is so
hard and the taxi driver wants some Soles by a service for a
white tourist]. (p.249)
Cusco Tourist Tickets
(Boleto Turistico - Cusco)
The Cusco Tourist Ticket ($10 for 10 days, students $5; a
one-day ticket costs $6, no discounts) is a vital purchase
for most visitors. It's the only way to get into most of the
city's and region's main attractions and comes with useful
maps and other information, including opening times. It does
not give entry to the Catedral, Iglesia San Blas or Museo de
Arte Religioso ["museum of religious art"], which each cost
a separate $5 entry.
The ticket is, in theory, available from all of the sites on
the ticket, but in practice it's best to buy from the
Tourist Information office in Calle Mantas, the i-Peru
office at Avenida Sol 103 (Galerias Turisticas, room 2; T.
227037) or the office at Casa Garcilaso on the corner of
Garcilaso and Heladeros (Mon-Fri 7.45am-6pm, Sat 8.30am-4pm,
Sun 8am-noon) (p.249).
Mountain sickness "soroche"
Soroche, or mountain sickness, is a reality for most people
arriving in Cusco by plane from sea level and needs to be
treated with respect. It's vital to take it easy not eating
or drinking much on arrival, even sleeping a whole day just
to assist acclimatization (coca tea is a good local remedy).
After three days at this height most people have adjusted
sufficiently to tackle moderate hikes at similar or lesser
altitudes. Anyone considering tackling the major mountains
around Cusco will need time to adjust again to their higher
base camps (p.248)
[When you come by bus from Lima it can be some passengers
have soroche in the bus. One is chewing coca leafs
against soroche in the bus].
Crime in Cusco by extreme
poverty
[Poverty is so strong in Cusco - and the upper class of Peru
is not giving any cent of the big profits of Machu Picchu to
the Cusco population, so there is crime against tourists in
Cusco. When the window glass cannot be repaired and people
are freezing in the night there will be criminality to have
money for the window glass etc. Tourist companies are also
instigating a hatred against the tourists e.g. when tourists
have the better buses than the population, and tourist
restaurants give pizzas for 30 soles what is 3 times a daily
income for a native, and tourist hotels have always water,
the population in the suburbs only 2 hours every 2 days. At
the same time the government of Peru maintains that tourism
would be "important". Yes, for the money bag of the
government, tourism is important, not to for the natives! By
this the government of Peru and it's corrupt industry are
giving conditions that criminality and envy will not stop].
Cusco police have made a real effort to clean up the city's
poor reputation for pickpocketing, bag snatching and street
muggings. However, in recent years there have been several
reports of "strangle muggings", whereby tourists are jumped
and strangled to the point of fainting before being robbed.
Although crimes in general are rare, it's still best to
avoid walking along empty streets late at night, especially
if alone. The police claim that robberies are virtually
non-existent around the Plaza de Armas or Avenida Sol, but
admit that incidents are still possible in the Central
Market and the area downhill from here. The train stations
tend to be well policed by private security, and inside the
railway compounds problems are almost non-existent.
If you are unlucky enough to have anything stolen, report it
to the
Tourist Police.
On the other hand, if you need help or advice to make a
claim against a local
tourism
operator or service provider who has seriously
failed to deliver what they promised (it's always a good
idea to get this written down and signed as agreed by the
operator before paying) you'll get better results by going
to the i-peru Tourist Assistance office, or contact your
consulate (p.249).