Cusco = Shopping

2008年4月5日 星期六

Day 8-10: 3/26 - 3/28 Cusco

Most of people in Cusco are divided into two types only: Vendor and Purchaser. Walking on Cusco´s street, lots of vendors come to you and introduce food, tours, accommodations and even souvenirs. Everything looks so great and attractive. You just take money out from your pocket and you can get everything.

We are also the purchasers in Cusco, but not really for foods, tours, etc. My baggage had no news and we had a 4-day Inca trail trek in the corner. The most urgent thing is to get my clothes, equipments done.


We first went to Topy top to get some clothes. Topy top is kind of like Net in Taiwan. You can get everything here, shoes, pants, tops, bags, hats with low price and there is a brand called Hang Tang here as well. But it is totally different with what we have in Taiwan. Also, you can get some Sport clothes, Adidas, Nike here as well.

Then, the next stuff is my underware. We went to a shop owned by a elder woman. Of course, she doesn´t speak English. Her assistant, a young girl, doesn´t speak as well. There was a male customer in the shop. He was the only one to help us translate most of things........ @@ I have no any secrets in Cusco since then...

I am a contact-lens heavy user. However, my contact-lens are in my big backpack and travel to somewhere. I thought the compensation would include this. So we walked into a glasses store. It is kind of traditional stores. Although there are lots stores around, it is always packed by customers.

The contact-lens is cheap in Taiwan, but it is incredible expensive in Peru. Of course, here no too many people use it, that´s why the price higher. I understand that, but you know, just still can´t angry at my lost baggage.

After a long confirmation with poor Spanish and poor English, we finally got the price that the 120ML liquid is 35 pesos, 14 days contact-lens is 95 pesos. The most unbelievable stuff is the plastic box for putting contact-lens, it costs me 7 soles. Come on! it should be free. Totally drove me crazy. (But at that time, I thought I would get the compensation. That´s why I just paid for it.)

I also had a test for my eye degree. It is very similar with the way in Taiwan. So I was feeling similar expect the lovely female doctor was speaking in Spanish. The last one test is to read the alphabets on the wall. The dear doctor kept asking me to read the same line. Although I could see them clearly, I couldn´t help to think : they are just 5 alphabets. Are they really sure the test is accurate?? But anyway, in the end, I got my contact lens. Happy.

To anticipate Inca trail, we have to stay in the tent for 3 days, of course, there is no power for charging cameras. So I definitely need a charger for my camera in case not to lose the landscape during the trekking.

The battery I am using is for Panasonic FX-7, and suitable for Fuji´s some models. So I tried to ask the charger for these two models. However, it seems Panasonic and Fuji are small portortion in Cusco. Some shops only sell Sony cameras. Some shops are only for Canon, Sony, Nikon. (But I saw many tourists use panasonic´s, well, they might not have the problems in losing baggage). After lots of enquiries, I finally got one in Nishiyama. It costs me USD 130 in cash and usd 145 in credit card. Please note, the price is different in different shops with same store name.

We found out in Cusco there are so many shops that you can rent or buy equipments for trekking or amazon. And the price is cheaper than the agency provides and the euipments is maybe better as well. If I knew this in advance, I wouldn´t carry a sleeping bag and a walking stick with me, and now both of them are nowhere as well.

I have to say thank TACA and LA airport to give us such different and interesting experience in Cusco. So that we could close to the local life and see various stuff here in Cusco.

Deeply appreciate it.

(A brand new Mei from inside to outside with a green new backpack. )