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Journal No. 46 4/26/06
We stayed at the Hotel Majestic in Santiago, Chile. Santiago is a huge city of 6 million. Almost all of the buildings where old, dirty, stone buildings. Everyday we would walk to the Plaza de Armas. It was crowded. There was one area were people were playing chess. There was graffiti on all of the buildings.
We flew from Santiago to the border town, Arica. We ate at MacDonalds (very expensive) and watched a religious gypsy festival with lots of costumes, music and dancing. The next day we took a taxi to the Peruvian border, crossed into Peru, took a taxi to Tacna, and caught a flight to Arequipa. 2 hours later we caught another flight to Cuzco which is about 11,000 feet above sea level.
So far in Cuzco we have seen the huge stone walls, churches and explored the most expensive hotel in Cuzco. I have also been doing school work. In school I learned how to make cocaine ( the directions are on the internet). I also learned that Coca Cola still puts coca leaves in thier drink for "natural flavoring." I have been drinking "mate de coca" which is coca
leaf tea. It has almost no cocaine in it so I won´t get addicted. The first thing they bring you in the hotels is a cup of "mate de coca" when you arrive by plane. They say it helps to acclimate.
I forgot to describe the city of Cuzco. Most of the buildings are built with Inca stone and the churches are built over Incan temples. The spanish used the outlying ruins as a quarry for stones to build all of thier new buildings. There is a huge plaza called Plaza de Armas in the middle of the city. Everyone seems to go there. There are lots of restaurants and the food is good. There are over 4000 kinds of potatoes here. The roads in the city are very narrow so you have to walk up against the wall to keep from getting run over.
Journal No. 47 4/27/06
Yesterday we visited Sacsayhuaman which can be spelled many different ways. Our taxi cost about 10 soles which is about $3.30. We hired a guide and got a tour of the ruins. He took us through a pitch black cave. Sacsayhuaman is supposed to be shaped like the
head of a puma with the body being the city of Cuzco down below. The ruin has 22 zig zag walls that are supposed to be the puma´s teeth. The towers on top used to be 45 feet tall but the spanish conquerors tore them down.
There was a great slide carved out of solid rock. I went down it very slowly. Natalie went down fast and thinks she broke her tailbone when she landed on the bottom.
Journal No. 48 5/05/06
We have moved into an apartment which only costs $550 a month. It is on the fifth floor of a building and has 3 bedrooms. There is an internet cafe on the first floor with brand new computers. The apartment is next to a school and there are 3 different sessions of school because there aren´t enough schools in Cuzco. The traffic is noisy, but the kids drown out the noise with thier singing and playing. The restaurants near us are incredibly cheap. A lunch cost 2 soles (60 cents) which includes soup, main dish and a drink. Musicians come into the restaurants and ask for money after playing.
Journal No. 50 !!!! 5/12/06
On Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday the Acupari Language School has ping-pong tournaments. A lot of people are now coming to play, but only 3 are any good. A 10 year old boy, a 16 year old named Felix, and a Peruvian (name?) are the only good players. I can usually beat them, but not by much.
Note from Christie: Paris´journal entries are usually 2 pages long but I am only adding parts of them to the blog.
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Dawn
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McDonalds??
I can't believe that Christie ate at a McDonalds! All of the pictures are very interesting. Was the Stone Slide actually part of the Inca's sacraficial ceremonial ritual?