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Published: March 21st 2006
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Lake Titicaca
Our first view of the Lake at sunset as the train was nearing Puno What a day...and I mean that in the best possible sense of the phrase. But let me begin rather with where I left off yesterday. We hit a new restaurant last night called “Macondo” on Cuesta San Blas in another part of Cuzco that we hadn’t visited yet. It was incredible... Definitely are going to be spending some more time in that part of town when we return tomorrow. Narrow streets overflowing with culture and everything that makes Cuzco unique.
One thing that’s really been impressing us about the Inca architecture (and I’m sure we’ll see more of this at Machu Picchu) is the way they structured their walls. The Hiriam Bingham book I’m reading describes it as “Egyptian style” meaning that the walls slope inward as they go up so the top are narrower than the base. Apparently this made the buildings far more able to withstand earthquakes (which apparently are not uncommon here). And we still use this technology today, it would seem (think of the TransAmerica building in San Francisco which is said to be the safest building to be in during an earthquake). The other facinating thing about these Inca walls are how the blocks were
La Compania in the Plaza
I took this while Nancy & I were having lunch at a little restaurant off the Plaza. carved to be such a perfect fit that no mortar was necessary. This makes it easy to tell the original structures throughout Cuzco from the newer additions which all have stones and bricks mortared together. They’re very protective of their original walls as well - I got yelled at for touching one of them last night. Oops. But, as Nancy said, “They really should have signs.” Anyway, the Incas really were master builders - and what’s more, they built all these things themselves without having the use of horses or other strong animals to speak of... Apparently llamas were used quite a bit, but it was found that no matter how much training one gives a llama, a llama will still be unable to carry more than about 100 pounds, so the real heavy lifting was left up to the Incas to figure out. I’m sure we’ll find out more about all this once we join our official guide tomorrow who will take us on through the Sacred Valley and over the Inca Trail itself.
So, that was last night.
This morning we woke up early, heaved ourselves out of our hotel room and downstairs where we checked
Arch
I believe this is called the Arch of Angels, but I'm not positive - I'll have to check... out and then had a cab take us over to the train station where we boarded our train for Puno (Lake Titicaca).
Let me first start by saying that this day and a half was really the “big splurge” of our trip. The train we were taking was PeruRail which is owned and operated by the well-known Orient Express. There were two classes of tickets available: Andean Explorer (read: First Class) and Backpacker (read: Coach). The prices were $119/ticket or $17/ticket. Nothing inbetween. We opted for the First Class and...well, it was worth it!
The look and feel of the train cars themselves were very reminicent of the old style trains of the early 1900’s... Upholstered armchairs, white linen table clothes, brass lamps, and dark wood added to the richness of the experience. Even the ceiling of the cars were covered in cloth. We got lunch and “afternoon tea” included with our tickets, as well as an optional breakfast (which of course we took being that we were on the train by about 7:45am).
The train ride was to be 10 hours taking us all the way from Cuzco through the highlands of Peru to Puno, on
the shore of Lake Titicaca. Now I know 10 hours seems like an insanely long trip, but I can’t even begin to tell you how quickly it flew by. Bored? Never! The scenery changed so radically from start to finish that you never wanted to take your eyes off the windows, even for a second lest you miss something.
The route took us through the towns of Huambutico, Urcos, Tinta, Sicuani, Chuquibambilla, Tirapata, Juliaca (where we’ll fly out of tomorrow morning), and finally ending in Puno. We actually gained elevation during the ride (I think the highest point was somewhere around 13,700 feet). We had about a 10 minute stop at La Raya where there were plenty of local Peruvians more than a little anxious to sell us their handmade hats, gloves, scarves, sweaters, and everything else you can imagine. Through the journey I feel like we really got a better taste of Peru in general than we’d had just having spent a couple of days in Cuzco and barely a night in Lima. There’s a lot more poverty than I think I previously realized, and yet there it was inspiring to see how hard the Peruvians work at
Dinner in Cuzco
This was inside the restaurant we ate in the other night. We went there because Nancy's guidebook called it one of the coolest places to eat...and it was! Very hip. Bizarre hidden bathroom as well - I'll have to add that to a later blog... farming or whatever other business it is that they’re a part of. One of the most interesting views we had were those of farms being cultivated right on the mountainsides... Amazing.
Of course we also saw plenty of Peru wildlife (or as Nancy called them, “The Big Five of Peru”). We saw sheep, cows, pigs, llamas, and alpacas (a relative of the llama that are domesticated and raised for their fine wool). I also learned in reading through some of the tourist books today that, the way to tell if something you buy is really and truly made of alpaca wool (because apparently some items are labeled falsely) is burn a few fibers - if it smells like plastic, then it’s acrylic and not alpaca. Additionally you can wet it - if it smells like wet dog, it’s llama wool and not alpaca. So Nancy and I discussed how exactly we might conduct these tests when in stores trying to purchase what they
say is alpaca. Can we just spit on it and set it ablaze?
In case some of you are not aware, Lake Titicaca is the highest navigable lake in the world sitting at 12,507. It
Streets of Cuzco at Night
After leaving the restaurant, we walked back to the hotel down this street - just LOVE this part of Cuzco. is more than 120 miles long and 50 miles wide. There has even been tales of a lake monster living here much like the one in Loch Ness. I also learned today that the name "Titicaca" is generally accepted as meaning "Rock of the Mountain Cat" due to an old legend where the Incas believed that they saw the eyes of a mountain cat shining out from the rock around the lake.
There is more I could say about the train ride - I could, for example, tell you about the weird guys from Arkansas that boarded the train (looking as though they might have actually been previously hit by one) and proceeded to tell us about how they just came from the police station because a buddy of theirs had had some money stolen but the police didn’t believe him or something to that affect, so their buddy was actually getting searched by the police (huh?); or I could tell you about the group of people from Scotland who sat just a few seats away from us and had the whole car laughing more than once; or I could tell you about Meryl and Hazel, the two British
sisters who sat across from us and had tales to tell of their world travels sounding like they’ve seldom been home in the past few years... But I won’t get into all that right now. Instead, I’m exhausted and need to turn in so I want to wrap it up and post some photos of the train ride, etc. to leave you with for now.
Tomorrow we’re up early, on a plane back to Cuzco where we will (finally) meet up with rest of the people we’ll be spending the remainder of the trip with. We’re dying of curiosity at this point, and I don’t need to tell you that there has been much speculation as to what these people might be like... Nancy and I have become quite imaginative at times, so I’m sure they’ll turn out to be far more normal than we’ve built them up to be in our own loco minds.
We don’t officially start the Inca Trail until Thursday, but I believe we’re leaving for the Sacred Valley on Wednesday so I’ll try to post one more entry before then.
Adios para ahora! (My Spanish isn't all that good so I'm not
Along the way...
On the train ride entirely sure that my grammar is correct there, but that should mean "Goodbye for now")
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Esclaw
Esther
looking great
I didn't realize how much of this trip you were doing on your own with Nancy at the beginning. Cool to decide to go check out that lake before the hike kicks in. Guess you'll need all the luxery you can get - it looks so beautiful down there - enjoy enjoy enjoy as it's freezing and staticy dry up here!!