Climbing Pisac

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o yesterday I climbed up Pisac, 5km straight up with this girl from
my school. It took a long time and was steep and Über scary. I don´t
really like heights and ledges with really far drops, but that´s cool,
I made it. There are a bunch of ruins from the Incas. The irrigation
system still works and was unbelievable. Incas were way head of the
Romans. Overall amazing, I think. But first, let me tell you about the
trip itself.

We head over to the bus station Sunday morning. Um, lets just call it
authentic. We get in line with the others who have their stuff to sell
at the market in Pisac. We get our ticket and hop on the bus. We then
notice the bus is full. And yet, people keep streaming in and cramming
the aisle. Standing room only. I´m like, guess we lucked out on our
seats. Mikaela is in agreement. The bus takes off and goes up, up, up
windy hills with no guardrails. A little scary. Got to see all these
little towns on the side of the road. Every so often someone would
yell ABAJO and the bus would slam to a stop. ´That means they want to
get off the bus. So everyone grumbles as this person pushes through to
the door to get out. Sometimes someone else would hop in. This was
usually done by the kid hanging out the side screaming ´´A PISAC¨ and
someone running down to the side of the road.

We get to Pisac and watch a church procession of people dressed in
traditional costumes. To the sad part. These little girls dressed up
in the traditional clothes holding baby lambs or llamas or something
and saying ¨Un fototio?¨ because they wanted you to take your picture
so then you would give them some change.

We didn´t really buy anything in the market and then started on our
trek up the mountain. I was about to die by about second 3, but I
persevered. I have pictures that I´ll show, but Ofoto just isn´t
cooperating. So we get to the top and it´s really cool and all of
that... The working baths, etc. Then we decide we´re starving so we´ll
take a cab down to the town. We ask the two lovebirds from Cusco if we
can share a cab with them (did I mention Mikaela is a spanish teacher
so we could pretty much barter for anything) and then two french
people also want to hop in. Í´m thinking about 6 too many in this car,
but off we go careening down the mountain, avoiding the cows hanging
in the road and young children. Then there is a police checkpoint. A
dude with a big gun. And I mean a machine gun and he wasn´t fooling
around. We slam to a stop. The policeman is like ¿Documentos? and I¨m
like, oops, I don´t have i.d. papers with me... But all is okay, the
taxi dude just has to show he´s allowed to run a cab. It doesn´t
matter that there are 6 people laying every which way in a tiny car...
No problem with that.

We get back to town and eat and head back to the bus stop. Since there
isn´t a bus schedule you sort of just show up and hang out and watch
the bulls trot by in the street. Off to who knows where... anyway. It
turns out Cusco is a popular stop for all these people. A couple buses
show up and it´s a stampede to board. Mikaela and I aren´t sure we´re
ready for that. But then another bus shows up and we´ve watched
several go by. We run up like everyone else and jump on board.

Except for this time, we´re the jokers who have to stand, pressed
together like sardines for an hour. Not to worry, the gentleman behind
me kept his hand on my tail the whole way to ensure I didn´t fall or
move, unless it was further back into him. But the lights were pretty
on the way home in the dark bus!

Gearing up for the next transportation strike on Thursday. Let´s hope
they aren´t striking when David comes. It´s a long walk to the
airport!!!

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