Another early start to catch a flight from Juliaca airport to Cusco, from where, tomorrow, I’ll catch a train to Machu Picchu. Juliaca is about forty minutes north of Puno, and as the sun climbs higher over Lake Titicaca I reflect on my several journeys through the landscape of the altiplano. Agriculture in both Bolivia and Peru seems frozen in another age. I’ve seen virtually no machinery being used anywhere, and a lot of the time have felt as if I were travelling in a strange, Latin American version of Thomas Hardy country.
According to Ruben there is a general migration of campesinos to the cities, and it’s easy to see why – in the countryside they have to work very hard to earn very little. And according to Lisa there’s another migration, of the young and educated, who are leaving Peru completely – despite a growing economy there are simply not the opportunities to keep them in the country; unless, of course, they have the right connections…
Speaking of which, this time my flight is bang on time and am soon in my hotel right in the centre of Cusco, once the capital of the mighty Inca empire that stretched from Ecuador in the north down to Chile in the south, and took in Bolivia and parts of Colombia and Argentina.
Dump my bag and am hurrying away from the hotel towards San Pedro station – I’m anxious to buy a ticket for tomorrow’s journey to Machu Picchu before they sell out (this is the height of the tourist season) – when I hear footsteps running towards me from behind. Immediately tense for the attack – everyone has warned me that Cusco is prime mugging territory – but someone is calling my name, or at least a version of it. ‘Mr Canfor! Mr Canfor!’ Look round to see an anxious young man waving me to stop. It turns out that he is the driver of the shuttle I arranged in London to pick me up from the airport. But I completely forgot, took a taxi and, very worried, he’s tracked me down the hotel to make sure I’m OK. Am extremely apologetic – and then extremely grateful when he tells me, with horror, that on no account should I go alone, on foot, to San Pedro station - it’s a den of thieves and muggers who prey off stupid tourists like myself. Instead, I should buy my ticket from the other station in town, Wanchac. He whips out a tourist map of the city to show me, then deftly shades in the lower third of the paper. Everything in this area is dangerous, he explains, and even offers to pick me up early next morning to drive me through this jungle to San Pedro to catch the train. A few more bits of advice and I leave him, humbled by my foolishness and amazed at my close escape.
Incredibly, only a short while later have to be saved from my stupidity once again.
Find Wanchac station OK, and there’s no problem getting a ticket to Machu Picchu – there are still a few seats. But – bombshell – PeruRail only takes cash. My face falls – why isn’t this flagged up somewhere before you wait half an hour in line to buy a ticket? And what tourist carries large amounts of cash around Cusco anyway? Am v worried that by the time I find an ATM and return with the cash all the seats will be sold on the one train I can take on the one day I can go to Machu Picchu i.e. disaster…
Correspondent Eddy Canfur visits CARE in Bolivia 
