Adventures in Peru: Titicaca & Colca Canyon
(I meant to post this photo last time. We are on top of Machu Picchu, and you can see the city of Machu Picchu over Spencer's shoulder. Most of these photos are Kate's--I took fewer and fewer pictures as the trip went on, because everybody else's cameras were taking much better photos.)Everything that came after Machu Picchu was...well, not nearly as exciting (which is probably why it's taken me so long to post this). From Puno we went on a day trip to an island made of reeds on Titicaca, which was a little bit like walking around on a giant waterbed. There was a fish-shaped lookout tower made entirely of reeds too.
We were invited into the islanders' homes, which was slightly awkward because we quickly realized they were expecting us to buy their (albeit lovely) needlework. Kate strongly suspected they changed out of their colorful skirts and embroidered jackets back into jeans and t-shirts as soon as the tourists had left for the day.
Our second stop on Titicaca was the Yavari, a steamship built in England in the 1860s and carried in pieces on a mule train over the Andes. Elliot was (as they say) like a kid in a candy store while we were in the engine room, but I started to feel like a bored and sulky teenager by the end of it.There were a couple more highlights in the Sacred Valley (basing ourselves in Chivay) before we took the overnight bus back to Lima. We split off from our Colca Canyon mini-bus tour to enjoy this rather isolated walk on our own:
(Those two specks in the middle are Spencer and me.)
Towards the end of that afternoon walk we crossed a bridge over a ravine and walked up the stairs on the far side. I don't know what I was thinking, but I didn't get hurt so I guess it doesn't matter. (Hi, Ma!) After this walk we took a taxi to the thermal baths at Chivay, and they were ahhhhhsome.Back on the mini-bus the next day, we spotted some vicuñas along the road:
Being cousins of the alpaca, vicuñas have even softer fleece but aren't domesticated, so professional shearers capture them long enough to harvest the fleeces. (Yes, I had a knitting geek-out.)
And here are our last two photographs: a condor over Colca Canyon (hoo-wee, were there a load of tourists there, but the food on offer is really good; we split some sort of spicy rice dish with avocado); and we stopped at several villages on the way back to Arequipa for picture-taking in churches, snacks, and shopping at the outdoor markets. Here Jill and Spencer sample the prickly pear juice:
And that's all I got (but you can click here for the full photo gallery, and here for all Peru entries).Stay tuned for August '11, when it's EGYPT OR BUST!
Adventures in Peru: Machu Picchu
This entry's going to be mostly pictures because really, what more can I say? You expect that Machu Picchu will blow your mind, and it doesn't disappoint.
This wasn't a big drop, but it was just high enough that Kate was nervous and begged Elliot not to goof around, and of course he didn't listen.
When we sat down to eat lunch I noticed there were gobs of greasy black stuff all over my face, and I had no idea where it had come from. I asked Kate why she hadn't told me sooner that there was dirt on my face, and she said, 'Why would I help you when I can laugh at you?' (And she did.)
We didn't arrive early enough to climb Huayna Picchu, the mountain perched right over the city that you see in all the photographs (sounds like you have to arrive before dawn, because they only let 400 people up per day), so we did Machu Picchu (the mountain the city is named after; 'Machu Picchu' means 'old mountain') instead--it's a lot higher, and took about three and a half hours round trip. I was short of breath and lagging behind the whole way up, but MAN, was the view ever worth it. You can just tell how exhilarated we all felt:
(We were long-arming it because Jill wasn't with us.) In this second shot we were going for a view of the city in the background, but you can only see the tip of Huayna Picchu.
If you're planning a trip to Machu Picchu you should consider hiking Machu Picchu instead of Huayna Picchu, because we didn't see nearly as many people as we would have had we been able to climb the latter, and I can't imagine the view from Huayna Picchu can compare.
After a long and happy day we returned to Aguas Calientes for fruit smoothies, then took the evening train back to Ollantaytambo, followed by an overnight bus to Puno.
Next post: Lake Titicaca.
Adventures in Peru: the Sacred Valley
The Sacred Valley.
On the 23rd we started off with a nice long walk through the ruins at Pisac. A footpath leads you along the hills above the Sacred Valley, past sweeping agricultural steppes and the ruins of houses, temples, and defensive structures.
We were out all morning, but it wasn't very strenuous because the footpath through the ruins is fairly flat, and then there's a rather steep and windy decline back into the town of Pisac (which left me with slightly wobbly knees, but not winded).
We stopped to clamber up to this watchtower, while Kate took photos from the top of a staircase opposite.
...and to give you a better sense of perspective (Jill's down below).
After Pisac, we made a brief stop at the salt mines at Maras. As Kate says, this has got to be the strangest tourist attraction ever. We sampled the water (yup, salty), took some photos, bought some toasted lima beans to snack on, and went on our merry way.
Then to Ollantaytambo, another important archaeological site. Amazingly massive stonework here too--Edison pointed out the quarry, which is three or so miles away if I remember correctly. You know how some nutty people claim aliens built the pyramids? Doesn't seem so nutty when you check out the size of these stones and how intricately they were fit together. The Incan engineers were good, but how could they have been that good?
Anyway, there was this central stepped space, vaguely resembling an amphitheatre, where the elevated classes would have assembled (highest class on the highest tier, etc.) to hear the king make his speeches; we went up the staircases and walked through the ruins situated higher up.
Next post: MACHU PICCHU!
Adventures in Peru: Cusco
There are always local ladies available for a photo op. I guess Kate took this one at a distance so she wouldn't have to pay up.
Once we all met up in Lima it was time for the touristy bit, so we flew to Cusco and met our new guide, Edison, at the airport. We were booked into the loveliest guesthouse: there was a gorgeous courtyard full of flowers (not to mention the swing) and a terrific view of the city from the balcony outside our rooms. We stayed in the old section of the city, all windy cobblestoned streets and quaint churches and whatnot--even the touristy streets weren't as annoying as we were expecting. I wish we could have stayed in Cusco longer than one night.
We had coca tea (alleviates symptoms of altitude sickness) at the guesthouse before going on a little walk through town to the Church of Santo Domingo, which was built on the Incan Temple of the Sun ('Coricancha'). Incan stonework juxtaposed with all the usual Catholic art and pomp.
One of my very favorite pictures from this trip.
The afternoon was a whirlwind of four Inca sites--Sacsayhuaman (a fortress with zig-zagging walls made of mind-blowingly huge stones), Q'enko (a religious site where animals were sacrificed to predict the harvest), Pukapukara (mostly a residential complex, if I remember correctly), and Tambomachay (another religious site featuring fountains from cold springs--I didn't appreciate this one as much because it was the end of the day and the site was really crowded).A couple of shots at Sacsayhuaman (I giggled for ages at this, and then I realized that EVERYONE laughs at it, and felt stupid):
Spencer looking epic. (Not posed.)
On the hill between Sacsayhuaman and Q'enko was a park with a big ol' statue of Jesus, where lots of people were out flying kites. (It was a Sunday afternoon. How do I remember this? I was sad because I couldn't visit the yarn store Mary Jane had suggested!)
Q'enko. There's a slab in this cave where bodies would have been laid out.
Pukapukara. Glorious panoramic view from the top.
I forgot to mention a funny story from way back at Sechin. Kate had gotten one of those nifty platypus water bags that go in a backpack and have a long straw with a thingy you gently bite down on to release the water, and when she laid it on the floor outside the restroom at the museum a hairless dog came up and licked it. She could have tried to disinfect it, but decided to ask Elliot to bring her a new mouthpiece. We told Spencer what happened ('The hairless dog was sucking my nip!'), and he goes, 'I got my rabies shot, girl! I'm bulletproof!' (Which is something you should not say unless you are trying to jinx yourself.)Next post: Pisac, the Salt Mines, and Ollantaytambo.
Adventures in Peru: back to Lima
'I never made it to Peru. I went to heaven instead.'(--Elliot and Spencer's granddad, who was about to leave for South America but met their grandmother and decided not to go. How adorable is that?)
(The Convento de San Francisco--well worth a visit for the bone arrangements in the crypts. Beautiful tilework too, but that won't make you shiver.)So after four awesome days in the jungle we (very reluctantly, in my case) took the boat back to Iquitos for the night, then flew back to Lima in the morning and did some sightseeing before meeting up with Spencer for dinner. (Elliot arrived in the middle of the night.)
Like I said, we were a bit 'huaca-ed out', but Huaca Pucllana was easy to get to and we thought it would be neat to see one in the middle of the city. And of course it was.
I liked Lima well enough as far as capitals go, but whenever we found ourselves back in the city it was always with thoughts of where we were off to next (or, on our last day, all the fun stuff we had just seen and done).
This handprint is well over a thousand years old. (The Lima culture, which built the huaca, dates from 200-700 A.D.)And now for a glimpse of the infamous Peruvian hairless dog:
Fawkes & Ibis, Lima style--a stall at the night market at Kennedy Park (yeah, I think that's it) where I picked up a couple of antique postcards. Very proud of myself for offering fifteen soles (in Spanish) after he asked for twenty.And a couple photos taken outside the cathedral:
Jill, Elliot and Kate after our visit to the San Franciscan Monastery.
Next post: Cuzco!
Adventures in Peru: the Amazon, part 3
Every meal we had a different kind of freshly squeezed juice. Here we had cocona (peach tomato). Did I mention how amazing the food is at Otorongo Lodge?
Oscar and Jill with the resident toucan, who is quite fond of nipping at people's heels.
Anyway, Oscar told us this local legend about the pink river dolphins: the Dolphin King sometimes steals a woman and takes her down to live with him in his underwater palace, or some such. As the sun was setting Kate, Jill, and Oscar went for a swim in the river, and we had a nice big laugh at the thought of Jill getting spirited away by a big pink dolphin.
(Unintentionally artsy-fartsy. Kate took this one, and a lot of other photos I'm posting. She and Spencer have really nice cameras--Spencer's especially--which made me realize just how stinky mine is. I know what I'm asking Santa for this year.)On our third evening we walked to the nearest village. The people there live very simply--most of them basically live in shacks--but they seem really happy. Everyone was out and about, chatting and playing bingo and soccer and volleyball. They only have electricity for a few hours in the evening, so at six o'clock when the TV in the grocery store switched on, some people came over to stand in the doorway and watch. Most people stuck with their games though.
On our last morning we went looking for gray river dolphins, and saw a few more pink ones too. This family of fishermen had such a huge catch that we motored over so Randy could help them haul it in, and Oscar showed us a catfish and vampire fish that had gotten mixed in with the others.
Next post: back to Lima!
Adventures in Peru: the Amazon, part 2
Me and Kate on a 'Bob Marley tree.'
Fuzzy sloth bottom! Kate took this photo with her fancy new camera--this sloth was really high up in the trees.
Next post: more adorable Peruvian kiddies, and Jill's tryst with the Dolphin King.
Adventures in Peru: the Amazon, part 1
I enjoyed every minute we spent in Peru, but our time in the Amazon was particularly special. Kate, Jill and I took the overnight bus from Trujillo back to Lima, then flew to Iquitos, which is where you take the boat into the jungle. (You pass through a market on your way to the dock, and our guide pointed out a stall selling weevil shishkebabs. Needless to say, I had no wish to linger.)We were trying to decide between two tour operators the night before we left, one kinda slick and touristy but with whom we knew more what to expect, and in the end we went (and were really happy) with the alternative, Otorongo Expeditions. The jungle lodge is really quaint and peaceful and comfortable, the owners and staff are fantastic (especially Oscar, our guide), every meal was vegetarian-friendly and thoroughly delicious, and we saw amazing wildlife on every excursion. We can't recommend Otorongo highly enough.
Taking the (usually horse-powered) sugar cane press for a spin at the rum factory on our way to the lodge. Afterwards we got a taste test, and as you can see Kate didn't like it as much as I did:
Below: the walkway between the dining and guest rooms at the lodge; the resident macaws; dragon's blood, good for all sorts of skin ailments; breadfruit.
Swaying in the hammock room at the lodge listening to all those layers of sound coming from the forest around us--the calls of birds, insects, frogs, and monkeys--oh, it was one of the most tranquil experiences of my life!
Reading The Time Machine in my favorite place.Next post: wildlife photos!
Adventures in Peru: North of Lima, part 2
(North of Lima, part 1.)We based ourselves in Trujillo for Chan Chan, Huaca de la Luna, and el Brujo; the first two sites are a short collectivo ride (i.e., local minibus service) outside the city, and el Brujo is about an hour distant. There isn't a heck of a lot going on in Trujillo itself, although there was quite a bit of interesting colonial architecture.
Most memorable, however, is the sketchy guesthouse in which we caught one of the desk clerks in our bathroom, claiming to be cleaning it at six o'clock in the evening (naturally, with no cleaning products to hand). Nothing was missing from the room, but I was still suspicious. 'He was sticking his nose in our underwear,' I said. 'It's the only logical explanation.'
Chan Chan, built by the Chimú in the ninth century, was a vast city constructed entirely of adobe. Plentiful pelican, fish, and otter motifs, and the diamond-shaped walls (fishing nets!), show how the Chimú appreciated what the sea provided.
(See the otters on the walls?)The next day we did Huaca de la Luna (Moon Handbooks link here), the 'Temple of the Moon.' I think this was our favorite archaeological site (it was definitely mine)--fascinating polychrome wall reliefs (giant spiders, vanquished warriors in neck chains being led to sacrifice), excellent guide, totally adorable Peruvian schoolgirls. There are two huge adobe structures here, both constructed by the Moche people layer upon layer over successive generations during the first millennium A.D.--the Temple of the Moon was used for religious and ceremonial purposes, the nearby Temple of the Sun for the military and administrative stuff. The Temple of the Sun, looted by the conquistadores, is still undergoing excavation work and isn't yet open to the public. Children used to play soccer on the sand before these ruins were discovered underneath.
I know this shot must look kind of posed and phony, but honestly it isn't--our guide was about to snap a photo of the three of us, and these adorable little girls were shyly watching on, and we invited them to come over.I also took a panorama at Huaca de la Luna--I don't know why it's playing so jerkily, but you get the idea:By our last day in Trujillo we were a little bit ruined out, but el Brujo (another city constructed by the Moche between 1400 and 2000 years ago) was still very much worth the visit, particularly for the Señora de Cao, a young woman who was evidently a very powerful political leader. Her mummy was discovered in 2006 along with a fifteen-year-old handmaiden sacrificed presumably to tend to her needs in the afterlife; experts concluded the Señora had died in childbirth around the age of twenty.
What the walls probably would have looked like a millennium and a half ago. If I remember correctly, this is Ayapec, 'the great decapitator.' Eep!
The brand-new museum at el Brujo houses the mummy of the Señora de Cao, and you can still see the undulating tattoos on her arms. I was really fascinated to discover that when you look into the glass case you aren't actually looking at the Señora, but at a mirror image; the mummy is lying safely out of sight. I was trying to figure out why the sight of the mummy at Sechin bothered me so much when I was only in awe of the Señora--it must be because of who they were in life. The Señora was entombed in layers of precious cloth and gold baubles, while it seems cruel to display the body of the sacrificed girl when she'd already had to suffer that supreme indignity. Anywho.Next post: THE JUNGLE!
Adventures in Peru: North of Lima, part 1
There were three phases to our adventure in Peru: first Kate and Jill and I spent four or so days doing the archaeological sites along the coast north of Lima; then the three of us took an overnight bus back to Lima followed by a flight to Iquitos, where we made arrangements for a stay at a lodge on the Amazon. There were four marvelous days in the jungle. Then we flew back to Lima to meet up with Elliot and Spencer, and we did the more touristy parts--Machu Picchu, Lake Titicaca, the Sacred Valley, etc.Anyway, we visited five pre-Incan archaeological sites on the first part of the trip: Caral, the oldest city in the Americas; Sechin, the home of a warlike culture dating between 1800 and 900BC; Chan Chan, the largest adobe city ever built; Huaca de la Luna, built by the Moche, who flourished during the first millennium A.D.; and el Brujo (also Moche), home of the tomb and mummy of the Señora de Cao--a powerful female ruler whose arm tattoos are still clearly visible. (More on her next time.)
At Caral we met Nathalie, a lovely Frenchwoman who lived in Spain for many years and was traveling on her own for a few weeks before meeting up with her boyfriend. We took a taxi back into town together and had dinner at a little restaurant by the sea (which was a lot less picturesque than it sounds, but it was still a nice time).
Charming.
Sechin was a much smaller site, and we were able to walk around without a guide. There's a small museum, and in the basement we were appalled to find the preserved body of a teenaged sacrificial victim stuffed on the bottom shelf of a rickety glass case. Jill was saying something about mummies actually being comforting to her somehow, not creepy, but then she amended her statement: 'Well, I didn't find her comforting because she was buried alive...' Her mouth was wide open. Taken with the bloodthirsty nature of the stone carvings that Sechin is known for, this one was certainly the most disturbing of our archaeological visits.
And now for something completely different. We saw these signs on every bus:
I must say this perplexed me greatly. Like, what if I can't help it?
This was one of those situations where the sights blow you away but the towns you've got to sleep in aren't quite so amazing--although we did manage to find a friendly little spot in Barranca (our base for Caral) for jugo de piña and some breakfast cake.Next post: Chan Chan, Huaca de la Luna, and el Brujo.
Home from Peru!
Welp, I'm back. It was such a fantastic trip that I felt none of the usual 'I've been gone long enough, I'll be glad to get home again.' I just feel melancholy.
We saw and heard marvelous creatures in the jungle, oohed and ahhed at pink river dolphins making brief appearances above the surface of the Amazon, walked up and down temples where young girls were sacrificed to old gods, got all our bones jangled in tiny moto-taxis (I called them putt-putts), watched condors wheeling over Colca Canyon and climbed up Machu Picchu (the mountain the city is named after, that is). The food was far better than we were expecting (surprisingly veggie-friendly), and I've never laughed so hard in my life.
So here are some random highlights--I won't start blogging in earnest until next weekend, when I get to download Kate's pictures.
[Oh, and for the benefit of those few readers--if any, bwahahaha --who are not related to me, I should clarify that Kate and I went with Kate's boyfriend Elliot, his mother Jill, and his brother Spencer. It was Jill and Kate and I for the first half--when we did a bunch of pre-Incan archaeological sites like Chan Chan and Huaca de la Luna, then spent four days at a jungle lodge on the Amazon--and then we went back to Lima to meet up with Elliot and Spencer, and that's when we did Machu Picchu and all that.]
At Machu Picchu. I don't know what is going on here.
Spencer, Jill, and Elliot, waiting for our flight to Cuzco. Elliot finished Petty Magic on the trip. I get four and a half stars.
Cool doorknocker in Trujillo, our base for exploring Huaca de la Luna and other archaeological sites. We disapprove of the Spaniards for all the disease and violence they wrought upon the natives, but must admit the colonial architecture is splendid.
Kate: How's your marriage going?Me: Great! We never fight!
More soon.