Today I took a day trip to the town of Pisaq (pronounced Pee-Sack) to see the archeological site there.
Getting there definitely turned into a misadventure. I took a colectivo. The colectivos to different destinations leave from different parts of Cusco. In the case of Pisaq, they leave from Av Puputi. The easiest way to get there from my apartment is to come down from the top end of the street. I learned, the hard way, that you want to come up from the bottom end of the street. The bottom end of the street is where all the tour bus style colectivos are. I discovered today, that as a tourist, those are the ones you want. Coming down from the top of the street you first encounter the passinger car colectivos. As a note to anyone thinking of visiting Cusco – avoid these.
The driver was shouting out “Pisaq!” as they do to advertise. Just to make sure I asked “Pisaq, si?” He replied “Si, Pisaq”. I get into his car. Other passengers show up, and away we went.
Now, I’ll preface this with the fact that a younger and stupider version of me used to do rally race style driving on winding mountain roads in California. So I have some threshold of tolerance for edge of your seat driving (Smarter grownup me drives like a complete square, just so that’s said). But this guy had me scared absolutely shitless. Google says Cusco to Pisaq is a 48 minute drive. Dude halved that, and 80% of the time he was left of center. A couple times he went so far left of center he completely left the road. I’m sitting there freaking the hell out, but trying to be chill since the other passengers seemed unconcerned.
We get to Pisaq, and I’m waiting for him to stop. Colectivos have set places they drop off passengers and wait for new ones. Nope. Dude blew through Pisaq at 100kph (~60mph). These are NOT roads you should be gong that fast on. We ended up in the town of Calca, and the other passengers hop out. I’m still sitting there like “what the hell is going on?” The driver is looking at me like I should be getting the hell out of his car, so I punch into my google translate app “Did I get in the wrong car? Pisaq?”
He reads the translation and says, in Spanish, “We passed it”.
Of course I didn’t understand him, and it took a while to convince him to use the app on my phone. Once I did understand I tapped back “I know we passed it. I told you that’s where I wanted to go”. He reads the translation and just kind of shrugs. So I tapped out “Is there another car going back there?” He pointed in a direction in town, so I got out, gave him his money, and walked in that direction. Didn’t notice that one of my nalgene bottles had fallen out of my day pack in his car, but I was so frustrated I just wanted to get away from there.
The direction he pointed turned out to be a bus station. Bus was there. I ask the driver “Pisaq, si?” The response was, again, “Si, Pisaq”. Fingers crossed I get on the bus. It does head in the direction of Pisaq, and he was driving sane, so I sat back to enjoy the scenery. Very pretty, that sacred valley. We get to Pisaq, and mind you I don’t know where the bus stop is, so I don’t know where he’s going to stop. Figured out where the bus stop was when he blew past it. At this point I’m like “hell with it” and shouted “Arriete!” and flung open the bus door while it was still in motion. I thought Arriete means stop, I don’t know why. It doesn’t. I means “Battering ram”. Driver slammed on the brakes and skidded onto the shoulder. I’m sure he was real damn confused about what I was doing. But I hopped out and paid him, he only took 1 sole, and then he drove off and I walked back to Pisaq.Â
I had given some thought to walking up from the town to the top of the ruins. It started raining right when I got to town, so I decided not to. There are taxis that will take you to top of the ruins so you can hike back down. I walked into the place where you arrange that and there were two hispanic girls from the US there and they asked if I wanted to split a taxi with them. I agreed, and away we went. So, I did get where I was going. But I’d definitely call it a misadventure.
Anyway. The Pisaq ruins are a big damn place. The interweb says you can see it all in an hour. I’m not sure who those people are. I DIDN’T see it all, and I still spent 3 hours hiking through the place.
