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Published: December 5th 2005
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machu picchu - the top!
we found the lost incan city! 4 days, 12000 feet, 500 perros, 200 llamas, 10 incan ruins, and 50 gatorade bottles later.... the story continues...
(i couldn't send this out on our last day in peru. crappy computer)
in the last email, i stated that we were headed to machu picchu on thursday. well, that didn't happen. you see, the only timely way of reaching the incan ruins is by train, and late on wednesday night a major landslide damaged 27 meters of raildroad track. perurail, the gov't owned company that exclusively runs the railway, announced that it would take 3 days to repair the tracks. CRAP. we only had 3 more days in peru! so what would a trip to peru be without visiting the world famous machu picchu?
so on top of being pretty bummed out, teresa got pretty sick. we finally decided that we would visit the Sacred Valley and many Incan Ruins including Ollantaytambo, Pisac, and Chinchero. to our delight, the ruins were pretty amazing. although teresa often couldn't hike up the steep terraces in the mountains because of her illness, she still hung in there like a trooper and absorbed all the history the valley had to offer.
machu picchu
the lost incan city so many cool things the Andean people created... the most intriguing aspect of the ruins is the mystery behind the architecture: not only are the structures made out of large stones that weigh tons (similar to egyptian pyramid mystery), but the ancient cities are built 10,000 feet above sea level high up in the moutain peaks! can you imagine the first Incan construction workers hanging on the side of a mountain, trying to build a city wall? "Yo Intihuatano, can you pass the hammer?" in addition to constructing homes, terraces, and fortresses, the Incans also carved faces and statues into the mountains. not as smooth and clear as Mount Rushmore, but hey these guys did it thousands of years ago. and the carvings weren't only for aesthetic value; the faces of the carvings align perfectly with the sunrise or sunset on certain days of the year (indicating the first days of winter or summer). anyway, i could go on with all this cool geek info... if you're a geek like me, plenty of info on the web.
a local Andean guide offered some help since teresa was sick. he handed her teresa a small plant and told her to sniff it. thats right, apparently the scent cures stomach pains. guess what it turned out to be? cocaine!! well, not really. but it was the same plant that cocaine is made from. i guess it kind of worked since teresa started forgetting about her pains, and started hallucinating. just kidding.
so the next day, we just rested. both of us were feeling pretty crappy. so we got in touch with my brother, who is a physician and asked him what was up. i had done some reading and wanted to impress my bro with my medical guesses.
andrew: "hey umm steve... i think we might have High Altitude Pulmonary Oedema."
(silence)
steve: "nah you dumbass, its probably because you ate crappy fish"
andrew: "ah"
so there you go. we were sick because we ate Ceviche (peruvian sashimi). son of a Viche!
well then our luck made a miraculous comeback when our guide called us to let us know that they fixed the railroad early! so with only one remaining day in Peru, we finally made it to Machu Picchu! and thank goodness we did because knowing what i know now, i would have cried like a fat kid without food if we missed out on seeing the lost Incan city. still, i am speechless when i think about Machu Picchu. i will let my pictures speak for themselves. thank goodness the spanish conquistadors never found this city. otherwise, it would have been destroyed. according to one guide, "Machu Picchu" means "Manly Peak". i wonder if the Incans studied Freud...
some random notes:
some of you asked about the nazca lines. i don't blame you, its really intriguing. here's a decent link:
http://www.crystalinks.com/nasca.html
we saw so many llamas in the countryside. and we were lucky to get very close to a mother llama feeding her baby. we took some pretty cool wanna-be national geographic pictures. anyway, i tried to get close to the mother and pretend i was feeding from her too, but she lifted up her leg and threatened to kick me. i quickly made the decision to back off: i guess getting a funny picture wouldn't be worth a big ass llama foot print on my face. what would have been worse is how i would have had to explain that to friends: "umm actually bro, i got kicked in the face by llama while i was trying feed from her"
lastly, i wanted to share something funny that happened to me in a incan market. as T and I were browsing for souvenirs, we passed by tons of shelves and racks displaying little keychains, bands, and toys. without me knowing, a llama puppet got stuck to the velcro on my cargo pants. several minutes and shops later, one peruvian woman started busting up. she tried telling me something but she couldn't stop laughing. she kept saying "senor, senor" and i kept saying "que? que?" finally, she shouted:
"HAY UNA LLAMA EN SUS PANTALONES!"
i responded, "GRACIAS!"
(i was flattered, but what a dirty-minded woman...oh wait, she was being literal)
hasta luego,
andreas y teresa
PS. i will post pictures soon...
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