| grockle | ||
A holidaymaker, or one from out of town. Particularly used in the South of England, generally as a mildly derogatory term. I wish those grockles would all go home, 'cos I can't find anywhere to park the car. | ||
Cusco is great - we have been here less than 24 hours but there's plenty to do here to keep us happy for the next ten days - bars, restaurants, beautiful colonial buildings and sights. We've also got Parita and Tom here which means we have evening entertainment sorted!
However, the journey getting here wasn't so great. The protests in and around Puno and Juliaca meant that we had to stay another day in Puno. No great problem, but did result in us drinking our body weight in beer, pisco sours and wine, washed down with alpaca meat and a side smattering of late night karaoke.
We decided to get the sight-seeing bus from Puno to Cusco. Rather than hurry our way through missing out points of interest along the way, we decided to take it more slowly. We became full-on bone fide grockles for the day. But the grockle bus can be unforgiving when you are used to doing things your own way.
The bus broke down just outside of Puno delaying us for about 45 minutes to an hour. This made things worse as the guide still wanted to get to Cusco at the original time (we left at 7.30am and he was still aiming for a 5.30pm arrival as well as taking in the sights). This meant we were herded on and off the bus like sheep: a brief explanation of whatever statue, monument, church, ruin, 5 minutes to stretch our legs around the prison yard before being ordered back on the bus and bussed on to the next attractions. The process is repeated ("If you are not on the bus in 5 minutes, you can make your own way to Cusco" says guide).
Grockles are generally not a friendly bunch. We spent nearly 9 hours on, next to and around the bus and the only communication were some small pleasantries and half smiles...and everyone looks miserable. No one is really enjoying themselves! Especially the guide who had to explain everything once in Spanish and then repeat the exact same thing again in English to a group who really would prefer to either have a bit more time to look around themselves, or have a cold beer in Cusco.
Okay - so it wasn't all negative. Along the way we did see some pretty amazing stuff (it was just frustrating that we didn't have the comfort of time in order to enjoy it) - llamas, beautiful scenery at La Raya, a good buffet lunch (everyone sat on separate tables) and an enormous Inca temple and town at Raqchi along with a beautiful colonial church.
The one at Andahuaylillas is apparently the South American equivalent of the Sistine Chapel and has the oldest organ in South America (take that fact fans!!) The town of Andahuaylillas was also stunning, a colonial town that if empty would look like it hadn't been touch since the conquistadors were walking the cobbled streets.
The setting changes quite dramatically between Puno and Cusco. In just a few miles you go from the flat altiplano to the lush green Andean valleys. The scenery is quite stunning, and despite being on a Grade A Grockle Bus, I couldn't stop staring out of the large windows.
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